to say

Amber O’Hara

I know that he would like to bake my sores beneath a lamp and watch them crust over. Then, declare with triumph that I am healed and he has done no wrong. But secretly— beneath the scabby crust I am spoiling with infection I suppose I am latent and susceptible And will be silenced like the feathery babies, escorted into their black coffins to sleep for the night The weightless autumn leaves whisked into large bags, their crunching and shuffling bodies silenced in the void of black I live through them as they’re trapped in the darkness and sufficate alone with the smell of plastic

I lose the life through broken stems In burning pallor I am born again

And then I listened as laughter came When I rid myself of the parasites I harbored.