playing with poetry

Exposure

I am choreographed into vulnerability
chest lifted
head back
wrists held out to the crowd
as white and ghostly
as when you taught me how to
hold a hookah to my lips
and drink sweet cinnamon smoke
I fall violently to the floor
ripping the canvas of my musculature
rolling and splitting myself up my center
contorting with that pleasure-pain of
knowing there is
Ichor in my blood
and I am invincible
a hairless sweaty hand
sliding up my thick woolen skirt
leaving a streak of ash
along the inside of my thigh
the score is to arch my back
as I spread my legs
lift my pelvis
drop my eyes

but I’m not going to do this anymore

I stand and press my palms
over the bruises on my hips
I wipe the blood form my ankle
with the back of my calf

I remember how
It was because
your name was Atticus
that I trusted you