Disguises

the nature of one is
clandestine,
and I am drawn so easily
to make my life a lie.

I have a mask for every occasion
I smudge charcoal on my eyes
and flushed with scarlet cheeks
I can steal rubies
with honey dripping from my lips.

And you-
Your doleful heart of stone
my mouth was glass
I milked the marrow
from your skeleton
and I spent hours mending
your bare hands
until I was afraid
of wringing out your bones.

You could sweep away my silent silhouette
shaking with surrender
still I’m shivering with
knitted arms
they fold like a
sorry hand of cards
I clench my churning belly of
cord and thread
the stiff rope of tired desire
unwinding like a poorly knitted sweater.
I wake up (barely)
and when beauty, aurora
blushes naked in the sun
I am frozen, flawed and hungry.

I could swallow every word
I said by accident
and I could stomach every man's
body I left unraveling
in twisted piles of laundry
palms tangled in the night

I took a cab to
catch my death
and the morning after
I went to work in the same
dead clothes
skin I couldn't shed.

I could bluff with my entire body
bending elbows with men who were
bald and broken splintered fragments
stuck inside my skin

But I was not myself
I used to think and dream
and now I only sleep
dreams of violent rage
my body stuffed in soil and sand
our hands wrapped around
charred driftwood
skin and nails
rocks and mouths
and that giant tongue of ocean
always swallows us
lulls our waking, blinking dreams
separates me
from what I’ve done.

The roar of snoring men
wakes me, makes me shiver,
and I take taxis to my own funeral
engine rolls along cement
spewing smoke
while I exhale my dying fire
of exhaust.

I was not myself
I was someone else
and now I've left everything,
even my ghost
is going to
abandon
me

and the only thing I can grasp is the
drunk notion of disguise
there are
too many things to hide.