You can be seven again,

squinting in the headlights

as long as you got magic & the means

to pretend.

Streetlight stretching out like sun-kissed arms

hot with nothing to hold.

My eyes can separate artificial light

into sun rays

reaching out with no hands

when Dad drives us away.

I think it wants to hold me

artificially.

I don’t want it, backseat

where nothing has ever gotten to me.

It's got my dad, his stubble in a sunset

the part that hurts when he kisses

it will burn now.

He is the one with the cactus on his face.

I wonder if he can feel it

when it pushes out of his skin.

Cold seat belt cutting into my cheek

safety and hurt are sisters

I’d like to separate.

Who let you be born

by two who cannot love?

Humming, my noise hiding behind the engine

rumbling warm like a stomach

nothing to feed on.

I'll give it something, my body–

Tell me, are you full of me?

The moon is a plate in the sky;

it offers nothing, not even a utensil.

Use your hands,

animal

and search for something hot.

Feed on

something.

Stars are just stab wounds to wish on

bleeding out, with nothing to bind them.

Have me with hands & taste,

this blinding light in me, I’m

red with oxygen

real & ready to hold onto something.

I don't need binding, leave me

open and tell me