I.

L’appel du vide big enough to chew on

with the gilded hammer of my mind. Pierce

my tongue with a bee’s ovipositor. So many

axes pretending to be crosses to carry and always

a planet abandoned by holiness. Tomorrow

I’ll surrender my adamant skull to stomach acid.

I’ll pretend to force calm down my bumbling throat.

II.

Tomorrow I’ll unfold endowed prayer hands

hiding box cutters. Je ne veux jamais prétendre

d'être heureux mais I have pretended. I have. I do.

Some days it feels like I could cleave my skin open

and swallow all my cartilage. Become a skeleton

instead of a choking saint. Bones grating away

covered by capes of skin.

III.

There may come a day where I do drown

do burn, do swallow my own tongue but for now

I choke on the ochre maps of different tomorrow.

A gateway to la version baptisée de moi-même

who is so clean the intrusions fashion me

instead of a hive mind with hymns humming black

a brief silence I can almost believe in.