—

I have tried
to keep poetry
as a pet.

I gave it a place to sleep.

I fed it
the parts of myself
I could not say
without becoming unbearable.

It ate everything.

My mother’s aging.

My father’s absence.

The men I loved
beyond the point of dignity.

It ate the woman
I used to be

and came back hungry.

Mine has ruined furniture.

It has found every place
I healed badly

and slept inside it.

It has dragged
every version of me
I buried

back through the house,

leaving them
at my feet

as if I should
thank it.

Sometimes
it disappears.

I search for it
inside the silence,

under the bed,

behind every sentence
I try to force
into meaning.

Nothing.

I begin to wonder
whether I have emptied myself
so completely

there is nothing left
worth feeding anymore.

Then I feel it move.

Not gently.

It has never bitten me.

It simply waits
until I call something healed,

then nudges it

with one quiet word.

Sometimes I think
poetry isn’t eating me.

It’s removing

everything

that isn’t mine.

I open the door.

It walks past me,

carrying something of mine

still trying
to become
a sentence.

I spent years believing
I was keeping poetry alive.

It never wanted food.

It wanted
the woman
who walked into the poem,

because it knew

she would not be

the one

who walked out.