i was all wrong about him. at first anyhow.
i thought i could estimate what kind of devious brilliance such a one was capable of.
i thought that i could actually see, even though i was partially aware that i was dead.

he made me with ourobouros: a rib of roast adam.
and i was one hot piece of meat.
adam was hungry as hell.
i was hellishly bounteous.
but i was still frozen in blackened metal.
graphite; carbon; ore.
brushed my toes the other night, and had roast with white bread
bled after the crash from my pinprick back of hand
to draw a rainbow on the tests to see if i was broken indeed....
wrecks don't make accidents of misjudged cattle prods, guards, scolds.
my stomach wall unruptured as i was reset in my place.
how many times i'd lived it; paid the price; and lived again.
won't ask don't tell stop please why is it that i have the birthmarks as of rosary beads?
stop asking me things like that, i thought you loved me for who i was...
not who i'm fabled to be, give me a break here, please...
he whispers as if the lenses on my head could see him gazing into my eyes blind but seeing
i don't genuflect to any such greed
i've only just come home from hell, and for me there is no steed
that could possibly drive a carriage as mine better than my own two feet
i'm not a boat please don't rock me like electroshock was what saved me from icepicks
how unfair more could it be to write sonnets with the lids of my eye bayonets?
backward or forward, pain is the same, and now i can't be touched
this snake eating its tail locked in my navel, don't tread on me, don't wade through me
this billowing carcass in hot sunlight, ready to burst, blistered and draped over my shoulders
give me nothing, please give me nothing, just let me be, i'm not a prize to be aborted, or a sin to be awarded to anyone, torture me not so; please.

[written in pencil pantomime: 2005 march 8 tucson]