Familiar Blades

i give you four days
and i gave myself blades

gifts
hard thin gifts
that are newer
strangers
than
my own body.

slowly, like a thought
climbing through the pores
up the spine

i saw things
i saw blood
and the calm knowability of death
or what is before it.

i made soft slices

on my legs
gifts for my mother
she needs
to cry at night
and know that her daughter is still
that she cannot move

om my arms,
where the skin
is tender
hands
for the street to finally beg some life
into my life
into my death
because of an errant bus

on my waist
the womb, kept precious
for my molesters
for those creatures who seek
solace
in a woman's body
only so that
they may destroy it.


on my breasts
coloured peaks
a mother's flesh
to the butcher
so that the meat
is mixed with all other genders
and animals
that are otherwise owned
by the world
i am owned
my breasts were pawned
in childhood
to wolves
with human teeth


on my neck
that ordinary
curve
for my lover
to know
that he can rest
his sighs
and restless hands
and pure tongue
to soothe the
poisons that
his fairies fed him
my goodbye
is in the vein
that once was like stubborn lightning
aroused,
when he came close.

on my eyes
on my nose
on my ears
on my lips
slashes
appear like
the poet's despair.
Like Walt Curtis'
hopeless love.
They appear
like lyrical erasers
delicately lacing
the shapes
that were once living
once alive
in these
places


My mirror
never could tell me
about the girl
with unknowable skin.

Ah,
freedom,
my name never was
what it used to be.

Instead

My words
were always
familiar blades.