The Nurse

Opening these wounds, to aire these secrets out. 

Suturing the hole, to keep old demons from leaping out. 

Binding affliction. 

Just as quick as I've sewn my mouth. 

Tapered the sickness, blotting its roar

where it once went rolling down. 

This waiting, 

Day to day turned faint.

Wheeled the sickness:

The yearning separated, no nursing hands. 

Stone chasm, 

deeper than the scars balming their rending mint.  

This lacquer, painting the canvas sheets 

A red cross, 

Held over the prayer of confession's reason. 

Pick the thread: roll the scab for feeling. 

Healing time, never came as you went leaving. 

Missing you as a missing dawn. 

Hallowed eyes, the votive drawn. 

Tracking voices, a signaled pulse. 

This rolling fever in wanting warmth. 

Dab the skin, putting shoes on. 

It's easier to leave when the lights are off. 

This vesper in speech, 

threaded my vowels,

To split the U & I

Revolve inside: choking ghosts 

Took the needle, and then threaded more.

Your loss of talk eschewed on the page

A history battle-torn, in a world that was never for We. 

Blinding vision. 

Wrapped in anoxic venerated linens. 

Swallowed my ghosts before they swallowed me.

The thought of you: Dry-heave…