My heart, the aggravated stone, the mount determined to be undisturbed,
the avalanches
falling from my sides like cast off robes.

Mother forgive me, I am not a demure woman.
Father forgive me I am not a son.
I have artfulness, and candor,
cheap tricks I deploy to knock the circling crows down, for all those times
I have laid naked with my belly opened, rotting in the noonday sun.

I never learned how to fold laundry.
I never learned how to “be good” to a man.
I never left this secreted island.
I’ll now ask all things to leave me be. Just leave me be.

The Four States of Matter: Liquid, gas, solid, plasma.
Points on a map; I go south. To the lightning I am summoned.
Canticles eek from the churches, I remember them, those lumbering hymns.
The drapes of my bedroom, they always hang, limp wings
blanketing my grief in birdsong.

I can not look upon the world. I’d rather lurk
as a beetle in a tomb. Meet queens and kings already dead and gone.
When I am sitting at Death’s table,
I will save a plate for you.

Hear the clap, of brains cells when they go out.
The strive to attain, and carry it all to the bitter end.

Too many times have I held comfort, to only have it seized.
Hail Marys on the darkest hours
have never wrought anything but desperate words in a silent, cold night.

Leave me be. Just leave me.