Puzzles And Games

Sometimes – when you look at me funny – I imagine we’re game pieces.
Like you’re a dark blue plastic disk
Small enough to fit on my tongue,
And I’ve got dice in my hands covered in sixes.

I stand still as your mouth bleeds black paint.

I squeeze my fists so hard they fuse,
Your breath tastes like tar and I’m covered in it.

Pawn.

I don’t like the way you smile – with those licorice teeth.
Make me the iron to your battleship,
smoothing out all these creases,
turning this ocean into

A little plastic disk, dark blue.

PAWN!

blank canvas turned oil spill
from your bubbling saliva.
file me down
into a little cardboard square
so I don’t quite fit the way I used to.
into my own clothes,
into this bed,
flat – like a paper doll,
my words just sound like
letters, in the wrong order.

my throat full
of black paint
my stomach full
of black paint

And you look straight through me.
With those dark blue discs.
Like being swallowed by the ocean.