It was that year I subsisted
Entirely on the tasteless hope
That disintegrated on my tongue
Shortly after mouthing amen.
I can still feel the day old despair
Lodged deeply in my throat.
I spent those evenings on heaven’s hotline,
My knuckles knocking against the ribs
of the phone cord that wrung tightly around my heart.
I was seeking salvation.
I spoke only to the angels with appetites larger than longing.
There are few things more
Deadly than a girl who is capable of
Cutting her hunger up into even smaller pieces,
Each one sharper than the one before.
They bite. I have spent most of my life trying
To grow a thicker skin, ensuring that I would not
bleed out every time I felt those teeth scrape up against me.
I feared that hunger, the massacre of mouths.
But I did not yet know how to escape my body, or how to stay.
Body & bed unmade. The
Ache I swallowed in the middle of the night
Was not my own. It continues to chase me through
The crowds of half-eaten smiles.