Anniversary
2 Minutes Read Time
for long i couldn’t figure out the meaning of words, their judgment, how to be precise,
like an assignment in fifth grade on cardboard, precisely acceptable and precisely
insufferable, or what to say to be through—a study of motives, a look without breaking
eye contact with the tool that will hurt me. i’ve since taken it as a warning of earth
that soon i will strap my head with animal skin and like a small rock hurl it against
an armed machine tree. i live under this threat. no prayer works. affection watches
from a concealed position. often a rat whose shadow resembles a vase shows me going
back inside the house means no more than paying rent. last thursday at sundown i was
expecting to have a good night rest and it was the approaching police siren that had
me doubting i was alive. today tilts in a calendar that’s as filled with murders as a map
of bones pulled from brown bodies. the same date last year my partner caressed me as
if i was everything he adored. without taking it literally, he said i want to eat you.
standing, he kissed me and bit my upper lip facilely, calculating where to put a wound.
he stopped at the taste of blood. looking at it now, men stopping at the taste of blood
is a wrong expectation. where my fingers lagged on, pain trailed with eyes wrung shut.
Read more from Issue 22.1.
