What is there to say, that I think myself an infant god? Douse the sun in milk, and surely I will drink it dry. The little sleeping thing that makes burnt mistakes, quivering in the rain.

I am trying.

Slip cold in my bittersweet to cut the cull, and truth is relative, the fall down the hill doesn’t bruise quite as badly. I have sweet, wide wanderers to the unresolved. This road is never full, but the drivers swerve because the lamb lies bleeding. It has no face and begs to suckle.

Curl your legs in fetal all you like, you will never be as beautiful as the curly wool dried to the asphalt. Fear is larger than I am, and goes down smooth in silent throats. The wolf is hungry and howling. The body is freezing. When you cut the limbs, the eyes will water and be beautiful still. You fear this? A soft crimson blanket, that will never thank the uncrushed bones, only lick the open wound?

Tongues unmoving will consecrate the body and cook it in oil. I will never speak of it, not with my wet mouth.

Surely it is better to be afraid, when the only casualty soaks up salt and cuts so tenderly.

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