The Metamorphosis

There are billions of stories,
But mine boils down to this:
I have hurt hard to love you;
Dying quicker than a teenager should
In my quiet, pale bedroom; dreaming
Of someone’s arms around my half-baked
Dreams—someone soft? With painted fingernails
And a vain desire to be written about?
Those people came and went like the sun
Against the walls and fixed nothing.
I can’t blame them; no one puts your shoes
On in the morning, no one runs shampoo through
Your dirty hair, no one buys you the truth in a
Silver-threaded box—maybe I fucked and fought
In tandem but, when dawn trickled in, it was
My breath against the window, my hands
Traveling over the cold globe of the steering wheel.
What did it take to move the mountain?
I’ll say it almost killed me, and when
I felt myself surviving I thought often
Of death as runaways think of freedom.
But clever tricks are tricks all the same.
And here we are—in a quiet, pale bedroom
With that same sun on the walls, though
It feels different to me now; I admit
This was not what I dreamt of.
Your body opening to me is a bigger door
Than any I could have imagined
In those wounded times before.
I want to turn my head and tell you:
Isn’t it strange how the mind grows,
How the world blooms to bare it witness?