Lacuna Child

Forget
the world
and the snakeskin it has covered you with,
the beams
of hunger you have slept under,
the grit in your ears,
the noise
exploding in your gut,
the fingernails of men arresting your essence.
Forget, that you ever wore your jejune like a perfume,
the heat of your mercury skull,
melting
the soap bubble soup of
shedding age in your tub.
Forget the punches to your rhythm,
the bile of youth covering your eyes,
the density of wide-eyed, gulped-down shock in your blood,
the kilern of madness soaked in your spine.
Forget, my pet insect,
about your tryst with the universe,
your ticket to the illuminated camps,
the cost of roses to your teeth,
or the dew in your sooty eyes.

Your vellum is a ransom.
Only a ransom
for bartering the inner-skinned
punishment of some day long gone, to come.
To only remember
is this, then
that which cannot be dismembered
or forgotten
or rubbed into any ears and curved ribs
is your truth and misfortune
dear,
lacuna child.