Vivisected

To look at myself I cut me up
slab me out
like broken grammar
wet with blood
and read between the steaks
that are my substance.

I always mess my hands
and see them small in the baby sink
white porcelain and allotment mud
school toilet flashback
paper towels rough and blue
hear the ghost voices screaming behind my head.

What do I get for self-slaughter?
Headaches and horizons
a sense of distance
from the me of bruised knees and fists.
Skinny. Blue and grey.
A swinging gate made of bars.

Can’t get away from wanting to get away,
my sleeping head is full of roads.
Bad food and bad patterns plug the dike
that and empty pockets.
I’ve got enough to tie myself up
with sugar and salt for a cure.

I am the sum of my prime cuts.
Maybe more. In invented spaces
in fire and music and skin and sex
there’s some me fragment
that doesn’t need a doctor.

That doesn’t need.