The Body, Unsung
I was the earth and the sky and my very own sun
until
You sliced your scurvy across my starry night
Dug trenches through lands I had yet to discover
Oil welled up from the pressure of you
stinking of sulfur, my songs unsung
so when you were done,
and you flicked on the flashlight to survey your work,
I had a full-body tattoo
in the indelible ink of your adulthood.
These days, when my friends get tattoos, they lovingly oil them;
massage them
bandage their limbs.
This makes them beautiful.
But you –
you just left.
I left too.
I don’t know where.
When I returned, the terrain of that body was unfamiliar
That body
That body,
it had one full sleeve tat of Shame
the other of Guilt
It had a tramp stamp of Filth
And it had your name emblazoned down its spine
like
not even a toe
could twitch
without passing through you.
like
I couldn’t feel my own heartbeat
without recoiling at
the barbs you left in my skin
You left me one hell of a wreck to grow into
and the thing about tattoos, is they never come out
They only stretch with time,
bleed sideways though our skin,
and when we’re old and regretful
we wear long sleeves to cover them up.
