Chapter 2

women whose breasts mock my tiny nipples,

whose bodies are ripe fruit I suck until

they are as hollow as me.

in the darkness of my little doll’s bed,

my stomach full of other women’s blood,

my own breasts ache to swell into

fruition;

blood, not my own, aches to flow from me;

muscles tighten in anticipation of a deeper

ache

I shall never feel.

because he wished it so, I have

grown up within this child’s body

forever dying to grow old.

* * * *Once I courted you—wild nights in dark

streets

Russian roulette in a bed, a new one each

morning,

living only to die.

Then I met him.

I ran with you because I feared your

touch,

the empty nothingness of not-being, the

close

stuffiness of a white satin prison cased in

pine.

But he knew you, too—not as the inevitable

shadow

that plagued my day but a buffoonish

clown,

to be laughed at and scorned.

Is there any way not to love a man

who laughs in the face of Death

and lives?

“I can give you an eternity,” he