clenchtooth

roses

not a true

not a true

thorns across a skin.

petals under thumb.

discomfort like grass against a bare side--

under the whip--

multitextural like diamond

to velvet to leather to petals, 

petals outpouring,

mouthlipped.

hold me in, dear god.

skin split provides a welling upward of 

red--forearm eviscerate,

your eyes.  flung against 

the sky. your hands,

magnoliate,

eurydice, persephone,

the blank-unblank repository.

2., 3.

tears unlike gore for

blood feels less of upwelling

linear.

water a choke and a process,

thick shoddy as oil,

mixless.

cry of 

cry of lone

cry of lone thing.

stumble out like

leak of the eye.

not that gentle streak

streak of blood,

trailing against the wake 

of the scrape.

turn back the clocks--

reverse tick.

4., 5.

fall back in time,

as if within surf,

naidlike, withdraw that hair,

take back that mouth.

shut down those eyes.

let me 

unwrite you,

let me

own 

this word--

5a.

split,

like that lip,

corded,

like those hands,

put away,

like that hair,

enflagrate--

like those eyes,

those eyes--