Resentment

you are a repeating bee sting

year after year, piling pinches in differing pitch

you curdle the morning with your sour breath

you are unforgettable like a drowned ideal

a miniature trauma, deftly poisoning wells

I no longer have the musculature for your vicious recall

regression bites her tongue, you enter my empty rooms

the sweep of your thorny gown; ever barbed splendor

I hate you and I need you to remind me why

my heart clenches at certain memories

even as they gloss over the gore of birth

lull into false security, the survivor who is still dying.

Trust is a gorgeous wild flower with shallow roots

don’t mistake my guarded eyes for gentleness

I’d no more let you in, than inviscerate my delusions

for no time at any speed, would completely forget

the pins afixing me to the past, like weathervane without use

call me weak if it helps you …

but I know all of us, are desiccate moths behind glass

our wings artificially stretched taut, see-through

fangs once so succulent, brittle with taxidermy

we bear our discolored underbelly unwillingly

all the while invoking eternal question

what will it take to sate the ache?

Resentment

you are a fresh faced girl laughing at my fat ankles

you are the friend who used me and forgot me

you are the lover who didn’t even bother to hate

indifference ever, the greater stain

for there is nothing that slays me deeper

than your flat eyes and your careless hand

reaching without wanting

through the savage throat of time.

(IMAGE and ARTISIT Ida reading a letter Vilhelm Hammershøi)