Take it off,
the clothes, the barriers, the scabs,
open your legs, your wounds,
like cicadas,
buzzing,
you can hear them a room over and our neighbors,
well,
we turn the TV up so they won’t hear us fight.

                                 We turn the TV up so they won’t hear us fight,

but still,
we yell louder                       and louder                                     and louder,
and louder,
until I’m convinced,
one of us,
will                                                              burst,
and we’ll be all over the couch,
the floor,
there with the remains of the careless I love yous,
shiver ing       bod     ies,
          blown                                     apart,
crawling through    
                     the room like
                                            double amputees.

Don’t call it we,
it is you,
and I,
and we fight because you,
are you,
and I,
am I,
and love…

                                           We fight because it is easier,
                                           because we have practiced it,
circling the bedroom like  two fencers,
our sabers,                         held out,

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                       call it dancing,

call all of it,

                               dancing,

the shattered glass on the floor:    glitter,
the dispatcher on the line:            music,
the lives we thought we’d live:      spectators.

I wish you’d hated me sooner,
we would’ve left this room less bitter,
we would’ve left this room,

                                 without knowing what we are capable of.

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