Licorice

I feel like licorice, the way
my ribs rub together when I bend.
Stinging and fierce
in your throat, but too limp
to struggle for release.
God, does the friction
of bone on bone
ever hurt.

For so long I lacked the words
to give life
to my suspicions about dead things.
Before, mania held my hand,
tugging always to
pull me forward
reaching behind my neck
to drag me on.

I made of my mind a slippery, blank canvas
from first heated glance to last moan.
Yet something always stood
around the corner,
hidden in the cracks of the
next sidewalk square,
waiting for me in the depths
of tomorrow's sleep.

All the while
I kept moving so swiftly,
regrets harmlessly
striking my flanks,
sliding off me like mouthless remoras.
No rough grooves or wrinkles
on my perfect mask
for them to grasp.

I refuse to let you watch
the cracks spreading
beneath the icing,
striking to the filling, to the
burnt layer stuck to the pan,
scrubbed and worried at for hours,
freed from filth
only to be thrown away.

I move the heavens to keep you
innocent of the strangeness
lurking in my material.
I will not bind
your sympathy to my arm
wear it into battle
against my past.
Through sacrifice, I spare your virtue.

Even when alone
I feel like licorice, with
ridges shifting below my skin.
I can not settle
into this twisted body
the curves do not
fit their spaces
my tendons are too long for their bones.

The clenching of muscles
holds me hard
even when I do not dream.
So I shift my ribs, press on a bruise,
attempt to mutate
to the will of the world.
It hurts, doesn't it,
this friction of bone on bone?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~