This light crust of darkness burns
against my skin. I lose
the edges of self slowly, each point
scraped clean.

I am white: a wraith slipping beneath
the snapping fluorescent bulbs. I could
flinch now, but my skin might crawl away
from me. I could liquefy and slide into a maelstrom
of empty thoughts and words my mouth
has never known.

I turn and twist under his hands, but he cannot
wring her from my flesh. I have folded her into the hollows
of my bones, spent hours stitching the thread of her voice
into my veins.

My eyes swallowed her silhouette a thousand times,
the impetuous rebel who spilled heresies into a shocked and eager ear.
We mouthed prayers neatly absorbed by blank white walls.

Betrayal permeates us like wood smoke.
A wound (once called the heart) is cauterized.
We live only under the light of a secret glass globe, and
what lies between us will not survive the journey
into open night.