Here the triumph dies;

A last salute

To glory. She stands

broken

wreckage 

less

the creature she sought than

the monster inside. 

Hello creation. 

I made you from parking lots I wept in,

long months, and toothaches. 

Inexplicable moments of infantilisation and 

the memory of something I never had. 

Come closer. 

The secret?

I wanted you to break. 

She. 

A word you know so well

it swells in your liver,

sinks in your bile duct,

harpoons your kidneys.

She is your white whale. 

The flag you will wave when you 

taste her love. 

The oil you will drown in. 

She.

The gown you wrap around your knees at night when you can't sleep for fear of a sound that no one else but you can hear... 

if they hear it... 

you shut your ears to the sound. 

When all you want to do is 

let go

and let the sound

wash in

across your body,

capsize your lungs,

drown your lips,

fret across your forehead. 

The light. The crash. 

The blind scales that weigh her down

come 

to you with bated breath and undone shoelaces. 

You hold the sword 

to balance

the world. She resides

a moth

with heavy feathered, tapered 

dusty

wings of flight. 

You are not asking the right questions. 

T(he)y want(s) to steal my innocence and my joy. T(he)y want(s) to put it in a box and make fun of it. T(he)y want(s) to tease me because t(he)y do(es)n't like how bright I shine. 

I am tremendously ravenous. What used to rend and gnash is now an energy that spills in buckets, gushing down hardened concrete steps. A release. An ungripping. Beneath the phosphorescent lock of his eyes, the warmth and waiting of a closet where hands and breaths are held. 

The warmth and waiting. The poised breath. The wild. 

I don't remember the first touch; only upside down monochrome and a pinky promise. A hand on mine. Over and over. 

Afterwards, the blind rat in my chest chews slowly on my ventricles without tasting. I will never fully live while she lives.