demeter

if a witness could be called, she would have seen me

lives ago, when i was young, and possible: where once i held

gentle and did not shake, now only the raw potentiality of having nothing

and having nothing left to lose. 

i i am only bones and muscle, tough on the teeth, all sinew and no soul. 

no heart or kindness or softness left in the cavity of my rib cage, no brain

or logic or conscience to keep the rage at bay. 

only the framework of an identity, interlocking knobs that comprise motion and this

sandstone skeleton, bones beached inland by receding tides and bleached 

by the late millennium sun. this is what age is: a sort of brittle vitality, the knowing

of your own mortal timeline and the fight backward, toward what

we think is love. self love. family love. social love: for when you were

thin, or stylish, or had good skin. i i earn none of these any more. i am too large

to be seen, too integral to be untangled from the rest. visible only in the way

i choke the light and life out of the ecosystem around me, visible only in my hunger

and easy destruction of others. i will never be pregnant, never fallow with hope. i birth only

the earth, and everything on it. leave me: i i am rank and raw with ferocity, sharpened

fangs eager to meet in your throat. i know the taste of blood, the feeling of it

slick down the skin and cold on the ground. i puddle myself at your feet, hungry

enough.