I know you are not listening.
I know there is a voice which speaks to you
and you hold its neck beneath the
waterline;

choke the truth
that’s choking you.
You are silent, thrumming in stoic madness
to keep it hush.

It is silent
but the truth is a disease with no breath
carried along on the scarred back of eternal breeding.
It has no heart for beating

or not beating,
shadowboxing with the pulse of
a faceless time of day,
swing and a miss

and miss, miss, miss.

What you fight is what is biting
you, the Mistress and her missing fingers and
her broken window teeth.
She is there despite you

in you because of what you are
and the howl in your stomach is filling
itself as you swallow its tongue
cursed hunger without permission

filling itself with rage.

.

.