Cry, she told me, it hurts less.
Pulling the tears
from my eyes and filling
her own. A transparent masking of makeshift.
Fight, she told me, it hurts less.
A tickle in my toes, aggressive
and violent against the beating
of my footsteps. I run.
Love, she told me, it hurts less.
She told me with her fist
around my heart, pumping and bleeding,
spreading myself in the spaces
between her fingers.
It speeds up.
Forgive, she told me, it hurts less.
I shake my head, words of
denial falling off the ends.
The regulating organ,
a wave, waiting to retract into the
blinded bliss.
