In bed, in the dark, your fingers brush the jagged “x”that marks my damaged past.I flinch out of habit, force myselfto be completely naked with youtell you how you can make a happy face with a lighterhome-poke tattoos with a safety pin and India ink.
I trace the pattern of your own damaged flesh,ribs shattered and warped, a mangled childwritten in pages of skin half-crumbled to dustritualistic burnings—here, I defy youto tell me I had it bad, we had it bad.With you, I stand in defiance of the past
remake myself in images of celibacyangelic visitations, with a heart as pure as ice.