Human*
Sub-you.
Unlikely, but just so.

So, here we are:
optic — light — receptor.
You catch me here in fragments.
Light from the over-there bends me
behind the rose in your eye.

 
Unguarded, I go,
Upside down — refracted — convex.
You respond through firing impulses,
And creating your own image of me.
A retinal map, variating the rain inside my body.
You’ve read me wrong.
You’ve never seen me//here.

 
Sister, woman, vitriol, kin;
What if I don’t want the hands you’ve held?
What will I do when I don’t want my own limbs anymore?
What then, when I’m hazed from not being seen?

 
I can’t hold your bags now.
The grounds that have tombed your tears,
now need the salt from my eyes to make marigolds.
I need my own fields to lay down in.
My Judas trees wait for me too.
Come here with me and say my name.
I want you to say my name,
sister, honey, girl, friend.
Say my name.

 
I can’t hold your bags, and my heart.
I’ve only got two: one clenches,

while the other wipes my tears.

My eyes wait for pity,
and my mouth seizes in stuttered purgatory,
Stammering on the screams that say
I’m human, too.

 
Here are markers on my face, friend:
The seeds in my eyes have seen the roses in yours.
The poems in my chest have been traced by the hands that have pushed me away.
And the suns in my cheeks have long been moons.

 
The waves I feel,
Are the records I keep.
The noise surrounds me until I’m muted.
I am all but seen and heard — present and weightless.
All but considered and written down:

 

The expendable tool,
The keychain around your finger,
The in/between.

 
No spine.
The one hundred percent nothing boy,
who has all your things and mine.