my knife slides against the
tender curve of the fig,
splaying skin open.
i am a domestic saint,
pygmalion’s woman cut from marble,
humming to the low buzz of the radio
in the first days of summer.
the night is hot and aches around its edges,
effervescent streaks of sunset fading into the horizon,
cutting board dampening with juice.
you’re listening, murmurs an announcer’s voice,
crooning buzz amidst the bayou blue:
sense within the static.
i used to be sitting in a cherry-red convertible,
strappy heel clicking against the gas pedal,
and i told him i loved him, but i was a liar.
i told him i loved him with my eyes
sinking into the afternoon light,
mouth stained with the pink and orange dawn,
vowels curdling in my throat.
like cutting off a limb at fortune’s altar,
mockery tucked into the fleshy inside of my cheek,
your tragedy has nothing on mine.
try me, god.
i’m listening.
there isn’t enough gas in louisiana to let me leave this behind.
and i looked at the light so long he became blurred by sunspots,
so i interpreted that halo as one of his own making,
instead of my trembling construction.
i lied to him when i said i loved him,
because when he touched me i wasn’t there.
came back to my body with fingerprints embedded
on the surface of my skin and a story rising from those ashes.
i say: i’m a writer.
i don’t say: i had to make you up.
my body existed to the degree which it could be loved,
a well-oiled engine in the wrong vehicle,
disconnected from transcendent bones.
but maybe i was the right catalyst
screaming go go go,
blaring the radio as loud as it would take us,
thin plastic heel snapping under pressure.
i wanted to love in the same way
a burning person wants to be stripped
and thrown into the snow. which is to say:
i wanted to compensate for the intolerable.
to give up the marsh greens and soft-skinned
peaches and even you, if only to make the car true.
he might have thought he loved me
but it wasn’t the way i needed to be loved.
he might love me now but i don’t think he
knows what the word means,
so he sure as hell doesn’t get to define it.
the unsayable turned to a toddler’s art project
in my unpracticed hands, rendered sticky
and trite and free of its glow. i thought i could
make anything real if i wanted it hard enough
but i just memorized salty cheap lines
in the gas station’s eerie fluorescence.
should he turn to light,
he’d be weak and white,
dimming at the bulb’s smallest tremor.
my voice grew frantic,
screeching into the stars,
someday my prince will come
and i will love him
without the words turning to blood in my mouth.
and every fairytale was a liar,
a horror story in disguise,
in their coffins snow white and sleeping beauty
are reaching for each other.
when you touched him i thought—
there goes the poem.
the seatbelt is burning the skin of my chest
and my feet are numb from pushing this forward
so i crashed the car.
yeah, i swerved to the side of the highway,
left him to the mercy of shattered glass,
ran down the pavement with my bare feet
slapping the dock like a heartbeat
and screeching into the surf.
scars track across my neck and collarbone,
black dress whipping in the wind,
arms out like i’m on the cross for her, for god, for anyone—
discovering the unavoidable diagnosis
tracing my veins for the root
hitting the water with a gulp of freedom.
and there you were,
fabricator of your own fate,
with eyes i kept seeing in my dreams
emblazoned across one wall or the other.
i’m bursting with tears,
keeling over with relief,
god’s listening. god’s light. god saw me
look into your eyes like you were life
and he knew. i don’t know how—
i’ve loved you since the beginning
—but he knew.