big mouth

Running a comb through my hair

hole-punch circles in my skin so the pressure

abates.

 

(can’t say I didn’t see this coming)

 

I am a skeleton of wires

You twist around your fingers�"but they’re not too stiff

To go back.

Only I can make them stay.

 
(Can’t say I didn’t see this coming)

 

Bent them round you, bent them for you but

you felt

Penned in, hemmed in, fenced in.

The wires so slender you slip right through

Slide around the curves

 

Of my lips

To escape me, hide from honesty

 

 (Can’t say I could make you stay)

 

left me

stranded, open empty-handed, reprimanded

and searching

for the slender strands of

myself

twining back together

to form a different me.

 

 (Can’t say I won’t recover)