Stay

A trickster, a suave gentleman, a hypnotic seductress

Shuffling the images behind my eyes

Changing shapes and colours.

Sweeping your bullets under the rug

Embarrassed, like a charming hostess

Of an ill-mannered dog.

Making me a slave

Forcing me on my knees

Kissing the palms that slapped me

[Frothing at the mouth

Runny nosed, red-eyed refugee

The landscape changed while

You were staring at the stars]

Time is a cruel master

Making me run around in laps

Letting the baby burn its finger again.

And again. I crawl to my undoing.

The broken bones and open wounds

The streaming tears and the resolutions

Forgetting and remembrance and regret

Come and go

And memory scoffs from her throne

 

I don’t want denial

And I refuse repression

I want the blood of my cut

To shine the path to tomorrow

I don’t want the hands of the clock

To wipe the cruelty on your face

In time.  I don’t want healing.

The pain must not slip into subconscious

Among shards of glass and meat knives.