I write my words in tiny letters on soap bubbles: free and unafraid , free and safe , free and content, free and brave and I watch as they lift and blow and burst into nothing I write my words on the ceiling to stare at when I don't sleep at night: broken injured exhausted and they circle and jeer and I beg for rest, for some quiet, but they haunt me in that half place between awake and dream they say disloyal they say coward I write my words on the bathroom mirror, in the steam they run and streak: Old . Haggard . Fat no obese no grotesque , a melted candle, a bloated corpse. I write blemish , I write imperfect . I wipe them away, get on with life but they stay on my hands and stain everything I touch indelible and permanent I write words with hands that are old and dry. I am a struck match, an empty gun, a seized engine I write them on the form at the doctor's office: benign please benign please benign I paint my words on the walls of th...
Here in the Black and White