Dance and Song

I glisten faintly in a sunroom at midnight
until the afternoon flickers into my graying zest.
Until my mind will stop horsemaning critics
from victims, therapists from superstars. I can’t
count on one hand the selves I’ve decapitated.
I either forgot about these relics or lulled them
to sleep, swooped them by the knee pits away
from home–half-killed by pity, half-preserved
by grace. Cheesy plastic in the shape of medallions
hang around my neck. Fuck, I might always
be this antithetic. Sometimes adults wonder
why I continue to dress in calf-length cuts
my mother piled into my hunched frame. Or why
my acne always bristles out in heat, provoking
the rice I left out to collect flies in the kitchen. Best
of all, they question my stillness
as they gouge my ribs out with a butterknife. Yet
as all rational people would, they enjoy defeat
medium rare. Succumb to blindness, I say. Watch
every friend brush my novelty, then purge themselves
ashore, all over my Converse. I leave
voice messages stacked in envelopes–I only love you
because I’m a con artist. Do what you know
best–avoid the girls oxidizing in captivity.