I think about the gun I shot, of the bullet that didn’t hit you. I think field. I think metal in the hand. I think of my own spine rupturing as something ugly ricochets off of something beautiful. This cleared bed, that story, the tender muscle beneath the skin, the light on Sunday, the filling in of the spaces. If I speak want, I speak you, & the language that is used is old & tattered like yesterday’s clothing, like flags from some war. If this is what it means, a heart torn into two’s & then three’s, then I love him, & him, & her from when I was sixteen & sweetness was simple & only sweetness as it were. If this is all I have to speak for, if I have to speak for you, then what is the use of your mouth? Say it’s to kiss me. Say it’s there for something. Say I didn’t cut it clean off when I reached for it, say my hands are not fashioned with claws. Speak for me this time. I’m tired of being the lone voice in the room, the echo, the reverberation of lust, the haunting, hollow ghost in your hallway. I want to hear how wrong I am, want to be pinned by a lion, to be made gazelle & beautiful: long, lean & without the teeth you know me for. When I speak want, I speak you.I dreamt of tornadoes, metaphor for the wind-swept, yet what I didn’t say is that they carried us. We didn’t die, but you’ve always thought we would.