last night i spent an hour wordless
I walked in
today ive listened to grief creature over a hundred times


the words of other people helping me break through the hand
saw your face
of silence over my mouth


when i am too small to remember how words form by a mouth
white teeth clamped
into sentences that express fear or pain


or too lost in strong feelings
black tshirt
or emptiness to speak


and we cant say the words directly anyway
should have run
the world does not hear such expressions


for we live and breathe among those who want only to swallow
i was a prize
our tears when described in excruciating detail


not our anger at the beauty that was broken or
sixteen, sixteen, sixteen
the beauty we have created from shards and shadows and blood


last night i spent an hour wordless
drenched in America and sweat
not empty but full


breathing, just breathing
isnt rape funny like that
the one thing I could feel as a part of me


words forgotten, there were only feelings
I have to speak in metaphor in order to get it out
i could not borrow phrases then


but i am now
in the morning
because i have none


i dont understand how people manufacture pain
I told myself that ... that I was so sorry
who could or would create the feel of violent metaphor


or the crease in a cheek from vinyl seats
weaved a different story in my head
could mean anything but it only means one thing


forced laughter with closed eyes
I wonder how many girls have giggled while they were raped
i am not ticklish


but that was what they wanted
I bet a lot of them
how can i only say this now


last night i was wordless
somehow thought memory turns into physical memory
i never run, I freeze


i curl into a ball and tremble
I feel my eyes close scared
my eyes are open, but what i see isnt the room around me


knowing its not happening in the here and now
the movie plays
does not stop the movie from being real


which is a difference between mary lambert and me
afterwards the fury comes like a wave of ashes
in my trembling i am what has become ashes


now i remember a time when i said i was a phoenix
I guess what I'm saying is
i had forgotten


but i guess
I don't apologize like that anymore
i could spread my wings and fly


last night i spent an hour wordless
I'm not a prize
as perhaps a pheonix does, before they rise

