swifter than sound

the thing is once your body is violated, it ceases to be yours. this house has no threshold, anyone can enter, there’s no door, one written hinge, a felt knob, it collapses anytime the wind blows.

if there was a crack, if i was a porcelain doll, i’d be buttons up the back of a victorian dress and in the front, between the legs nothing but stitches x x x x x x no o’s, no kisses, it’s just the anatomy of a finger and a hole when you come right down to it the entire universe is that, an out and an in, a finger and a hole,

this girl, a body. her tongue like dog pant. the fucking smell. this was before the girl sweated so, in a way, it was before the man sweated. this was before the girl emptied, her heart still swollen. this was before the man emptied.

the girl jumped into the lap. the girl jumped out of the lap. the man breathed and zipped his pants.

if girls were not towers. if we could shake without crumble. this girl owed someone a really strong spine, so she broke but not bent, her fallen walls whole. when the girl was a woman and the woman a hostel she whimpered inside the other girl’s body the girls drank so a veil covered both of their bodies.

1. we are sorry you chose us as a friend. we are sorry for the love you always gave us sorry we could never find a bottom in our hole. we are sorry that when we die it will take your friend away.

2. we never gave ourselves a chance to ripen. Maybe that was Eve’s sin. Maybe we all need more patience. she puckered as the juice stung the cut in her lip, threw the fruit to the ground after only one bite. her teeth stained purple. her heart wanting sweeter.

3. You feed both raging wolves. They howl for more, and you, you have nothing left to give but you won’t take a side neither wolf wins. the pups will starve, their pelts will rot, the same color gray. and the pups will have mothers we all will have mothers and the mothers will waste away.

4. i’m sorry i never made my bed never helped you wash the dishes never told you about the cigarettes, the cutting, the burns on my arm i’m sorry our carpet was always stained. the only way to forgive ourselves for living is to die.