Monthly

We go through this,

            she and I

over and over.

“I’m here,” she says.

“Look at me, I’m here.”

And she says all she wants

            is to be filled

to feel the warmth of life

pulsing

            inside her.

She says I fill them,

            all the others—

fill them with chocolate, air,

            water, drugs.

She waits,

            and I tell her, “Be still.

                        Stop it.”

She hunches over,

            crumples in on herself.

She claws at her own fragile skin,

            shredding it into limp strips

            like grinded meat.

Raw, she screams.

She weeps blood.

                        --November 8^th, 2001