little have i seen that gets my heart
too far away from my own self and after
i pull it back with the strings that go right
through the middle it learns to care only
for myself and blind to anyone else —they
are all faces and no human flesh
resides in them—


somewhere a creature cries out
in pain or orgasm, it does not matter,
it is foreign to the steps i take and
the colors i see, the street is not ready
but jumping with shapes moving far and fast
enough to make me catch my breath but not
any acknowledgement of fraternal heat at all


my fingers knit incantations and my voice is made of poison
and i know the lyrics to every sin in every country
i can sing the blood boiling up in your ears
my lips know no silence, shut, they recite the spells
that close your airways that you don't know, every
perversion and disease clogging up your throat
i will call out


soon enough i will find a child, violent and beautiful
i will spit words into it and see its eyes growing large
and fearful —she will be mine and mine only— and i will
protect her from any harm as if she were myself, she will have
my hair and scent and with her small lips she will learn
the words that i have let no man hear


little have i seen that gets my heart
too far away, and this child will be no exception
the strings that die when this heart does she will save and
they will be her own, my own, she will inherit this
alien heart and i will never die, my own poison voice
singing in hers, empty and dangerous and shrill with the echo,
dark and hungry like i never lived





Wordmongers' Masque: Poets' Ball

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