Autopsy

Sticks and stones may break my bones
but bones are made of sterner stuff
like after dinner wishes,
and heal.
Not pulpy like the brain or heart
where your words are dessicated branches for the fire
and tragedies echo.

Sorrow seeps into tear ducts and my open mouth
Slipping along the darkened hallways of my veins
and pooling in the birdcage of my chest.

Moments of forgiveness
are the faces of an apostate to the moon
before it fades into nothing -
spaces lit only by orbs and things that glow
forged and forgotten, but all inside myself.

I am in that breath where anonymity meets skin
A story left untold by ink or blade or screaming throat.
My currency of secrets keeps me earthbound
dragging
shying from the sun.