“I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never…” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
This is a story about hands: how I
am always searching for things to bury. I have
only this blue body, this terrible body, this murdered
self. A face blue like overripe stars, like pigeons. I want the
ending to be bright. Inside a forest, a place so green, so lovely
it burns. This is a story about burning &
being burned. I will give you bellflower root, mugwort, the
sour skin of my throat, my tongue still helpless,
noiseless against the rain. Here is my body & here is what I
can give you. I am only what I sing, stretched shirt, stale half
of a bread roll. Just a little music as the birds unfurl, strangled
into song. What can I give that will make you stay? The
song looped over, the other half. Innocent,
soft. Something that has known warmth & swallowed it. The body as
a measure of everything but itself. The birds as they
continue to sing. A beat of quiet for flickering rain, for ruin slipped
under pillowcases. This is a story about hands &
everything they cannot touch. The only ending I know: grasped
mouths & blue palms & a forest burning to
silence. Here is what’s left. Here is my body, death
-less & waiting & so cold. All I have is this:
a face nothing like yours, your voice still scratching at my throat.
Here is my body & the way it has forgotten who
-leness. Here is my body. A story about how it never—
