[Root Work]

 

 

 

i tried to make you love me

burned two bound candles               seven day

surrounded by salt

tied together with my familiar strings of pretense

your name on folded pieces of paper 

to keep you on the inside

pictures of us in other times

and sacred stones on good luck grids

 

i wash my hands with rose water

and still smell death on my skin

 

sometimes i see trees and turn green

because they are growing

 

last night i dreamed of fish

but have no womb

 

today you are holding me close

and i cannot feel your flesh

you are already bone

 

the wax covering your face is oddly contoured

this rorschach romance conjures

the worst of my imagination

and hides your eyes

 

our lop-sided candles tell a story

one of us is gone

one of us is everywhere

 

i am beautifully  misshapen

and uncontained

 

peel my skin like tender fruit

underneath i am all roots               no seed

i will  bear no blossoms

nor give much more than leaves

i grow underground

planted in a graveyard long ago

and tended by the dead

 

needle my flesh

to make me feel

end our ritual of pretending

i am a broken bottle tree

all pieces and harm

 

burn my body on a compost pile

and scatter me where lost love walks

 

i tried to make you love me

but my magic does not work

without blood