TAR

Slice me open

Gently. Not with a

Knife or scalpel or anything

Manmade. Use something

Organic. A flower. A leaf.

Your lips.

Pull back my flesh my ribs.

Spread me apart. Open me wide.

Enter me. All of you.

There’s plenty of room

If you don’t mind moving some things around

Pushing them out of the way.

Squeeze in. You’ll fit. You’re lithe.

Bring everything you have

That’s important to you

That sets you apart from

All those who ever glared at you

For getting in their way

Or who ignored you

Because you were so quiet.

Bring along your impatience & skepticism

Your contempt for ignorance

Your philosophy grounded in betrayal & rage.

Bring your obstinance your refusal to

Forgive yourself for those unspeakable things

Done to you when you were young

And for the beatings you received

When you opened up to your mother.

Bring your lonely catatonic teenage afternoons.

​

Bring with you your clay and

Colored pencils and a sketchpad

A pen and notebook.

We’re alike that way:

We demand more than memories.

​

Maybe you still don’t believe that this

Isn’t about possessing you.

Or wanting you to be mine.

But to know

How it would feel

If you occupied me

Not just my mind

But the space inside of me

Not the way a fetus

With its primordial sense of survival

Grows inside its mother

But the way someone

Raised by urges and desires

Nurtured by fantasies

Who knows that she is ravenous and

Will always give in to her lust

Could get at me

From the inside

Touch and taste those parts of me

No one else ever tried to reach

That is the seething intrigue

That singes

my fragrant reason.