Poseidon's Bodies Exhibit

*I don't know why there's a font-size issue going on here. Many apologies. 


There will come a time 

when the shadow warriors of you

will close in on me, get their hands
around my neck and in my hair,
push me to the floor, their suffocating
hands making a rag doll of me.

I refused to believe that you could be
brimming with shadows that night I said,
I hope October never comes as if it would
confirm your shadowlessness. 

I trusted you too soon. In that, I am the villain.
But where's the crime in being willful naïveté  
for the sake of learning to love?  


So before the shadow warriors of you
fill the measure of their creation,
I must to kill you.

I must unzip my skin from
between my eyes to the nape of my neck,
peel my skull in two, find that pocket I dug into
my temporal lobe in second grade.

I must find the papermate pink pearl easer
I stuck in that pocket for this exact purpose,
bite my tongue through the pain of pulling it out,
wipe the brain slime on my jeans. I must then
zip my skull back up, and get to work.

I must first erase your Converse
so I won’t have to linger upon those
nights you walked me home and I, for a moment,
let go of English Academic Society President,
Oldest Of Seven, Stage and Production Manager,
and all the other titles that hang heavy on my shoulders.
Because your Converse are gone, I won't have to
love that it was you who made me free to exhale.

I must erase the veins in your arms, as well as

your fingers that fluttered impatiently until I put my hand in yours.
Because your veins and hands are gone, I won't have to love
that I felt electricity almost every time.  

I must erase your Kevin Smith circa 1994 hair
and your hound dog eyes. Because your hair and
your eyes are gone, I won’t have to love that you didn’t
get it when I laughed and said you are so 90’s.  

Finally, I will erase those perfectly loose Levis.
The ones I put my hands in the pockets of
on that night you danced me around the living room
in the glow of the orange streetlights making love to the rain.
Because those Levis are gone, I won’t have to love
that we spoke in riddles, so close to and so far from
the purity of cozy aloneness.  

Having erased you, I will gather the scraps  
of you at the oceans edge as an offering to Poseidon,
that Great Greek God of the Sea.
He will take them to the ocean depths and
there he will make a mosaic of you.

Your bones will be the leftovers of dead
sharks, whales, and merfolk.
He will gather broken seashells and salmon scales,
mix them with the scraps of you, make a concoction
of your soul. He will pour your soul inside the ribcage and it will
gently ooze into your arms and legs like giant, supernatural sea slugs.  
He will cover the bones and jelly of you in phytoplankton skin.
The sea lions will weave you a robe of old fishing nets,
broken fishing lines and kelp.
He will decorate you with coral hair and a jellyfish beard.
Starfish hands.

He will reanimate you, and the pulse of the ocean
will teach your hips to dance again.
Your starfish hands will lead the music.
Amid his's collection of forgotten
lovers and lost loves, you will be the
crowning piece of Poseidon’s Bodies Exhibit.

I trusted you too soon. In that, I am the villain.
But passively allowing the shadow warriors of you
to make a rag doll of me is not justice.
I will erase you.
When I do, it no longer be so heavy on us
that I was the last to say I love you
but I didn't mean it anymore.