I’ve played this game forever and I still don’t know
anybody or the way their names sound
or myself well enough to know why
I sleep so lightly and laugh with precision
or why my heartbeats they are
trying to beat themselves

I don’t steal from anyone else’s pockets
but my own I try to line with gold
so that my vulnerability it will show
only if you look through my wicked fingers
tips bent, broken and scattered
reaching for a blind spot

In anyone else’s words but mine you’d say
I am February-cold and snow-glowing
yet you always see my pinkish shade
never my dislocated ventricles or hear
my off-key powerballad
of words I can’t pronounce