where do your loyalties lie?

In the rising of seas, in the swelling of tides

In the current wind, the sword-fight of my breathing, the pressing of my thighs

together. A chest heaves closed as my fist, closed as the window between us

Now she is stranger than the truth, now I am a girl in the shape of a woman; watch me

Leaning over myself, I don’t know who to believe

Even though the accusation was flattering, I brought my dreams to life out of boredom

Besides I was reckless, selfish. It was hardly cleverness that possessed me

And for some reason, when I was finished, I brought them all to you

And you listened, patiently, while the list itself grew long

The list - I mean - of people I loved

I wielded that list secretly, I doted on that list hand and foot

It grew and spread like disease until the stench was nauseating

Until I had no choice but to spill

Until one day I looked up from my hands and saw your snow angel

Lying there, covering lands immeasurable

Pressing through clouds to touch my hands, and I thought

I would retire my clenching fists, and find another flame to shoot down

And I would be dutiful, I would be different now

But soon enough, I saw the architect of your mind was my own

The same world was prying out through the tiny, square possibility of flight

From my childhood, when shoulder blades were wings

That narrow window was a doorway into changing my mind about the important things

Sex, secrecy, solitude

But all it did was turn my torrid imagination into a lifetime of paperwork

That snow angel reminded me of that one sentence too long we shared

It was your name: one I can now redefine

Through the fresh beating of rain

The tangerine sun rising against your throat, the flesh of your left shoulder

The slashing, bucketing down bliss of orange headlights on the wet road

The magic whistling of time passing, and paint drying, and growing old without lifting a finger

All of which I cannot-do-not want to see

And still I know it’s here, in the room with me:

Another person with terrible, tangible memories

Her flood of fingers and fears all allude me, but

That kind of infinite sadness contains no accurate description

In its wake, I am no poet, I am not playwright

I am a woman bending over myself, becoming something else

Unless I am being dead honest

About lying on the ground of the universe

It was years ago now, I was making snow angels

Though by that point I had never seen snow, I had never felt

The cruel sting of day after day, one after another

And lying there, within myself, my own numb interrogation

I felt my pulse throughout my entire body, I felt the beating of my skull

Take on a life of its own

That kind of heat could have purified death for me

A thousand times over. Yet it wasn’t easy to do, performing resurrection

after resurrection. All those times I gnawed on the sleeve of my own misfortune

I tugged and tired

From the hand who fed me, until I grew broke and ugly too

Until I was the moon in the gutter, until I set myself alight

And burst into flames. That kind of ecstasy

Has no explanation I deem necessary, but it was sensational

And you should have seen it. That time, I was different

I was sensational, I was forgiving, I was exactly right