I want to peel my skin back in ribbons
Until there’s nothing left of me
So someone new and
Beautiful and
Funny and
Smart and
Wonderful and
Lovely and
Not
Me
Can crawl out
the black wait
I hear hurried steps,
they are just in the past. Running up the spiral stone steps
like a xylophone of spines
to get to class.
They hung babies here,
once.
They figured that
life is very much like living on death row, or encased in an old fashioned executioner's chamber,
it's just that on the outside
the walls are invisible, look like horizons,
or else are the ones we make for ourselves
out of brick and plaster of Paris.
I'm listening to the sound of the stealth bombers flying overheard again.
Remember?
Those nights we held our backs to the licking black tongues of grass
and threw our eyes out to the dark sheet tucking up t
