These Cells Are Passages

I am hollowed out and the shell
of me is filled with sugared strawberries
and thorny patience.
Scoop me out and replace
who I am
with what you like instead:
maybe brown sugar and pecans,
maybe peaches warmed in the sun.
Or maybe once my insides
are missing,
you won't
fill me up again.
Maybe you'll just leave me empty.
You forgot to put sugar
with the flour,
and I am only
butter and salt.
Maybe you won't finish
what you started.
Maybe you prefer
a bitter woman to a sweet girl,
dough hardening
in the fridge.

I am crushed
under the weight
of my transgressions,
and a blue Buick
with soft insides
carries me home,
bones and fat
and humility.
Because it's all true.
I am all hormones
and dangling modifiers
and sleepy memories.
And I am a tired someone.
I am someone's dream girl,
latched onto the arm
of a smiling friend,
warm and tired and simple.
The Buick cradles me
and for once
I am tiny somewhere,
a plush thing,
rattling around behind
heavy doors.
I am carried off
into a large city
or a small town,
some place
with a funny name,
some place where
I am a welcome witch,
where my spells are blessings
and the blue Buick
can be parked undisturbed.

Fall into someone,
whitehot fire
licking.
Fall into me
like
I am your bed,
your dream.
Catch me
before I catch cold,
before
the sun is gone.
Be my journey,
your lesson,
your chest
falling into me.
Be difficult,
my lesson.
Fall into someone.
Fall into me.

"Take the light
from this empty house,"
I said, and you complain.
"There you go
with that house imagery
again," you said
through gritted teeth.

I devolve into a child,
or a fiery swarm,
or whatever else you see me as,
and I am left looking upward
toward the candle
in the far window.

"Just
just
fucking take it,"
I spit, a stereotype in
every film you've seen,
every song you listen to
while angry with me.

"I left for a reason,"
you said, and I armed myself.
"You are too sick
and I am too tired."
I looked away from the candle
for the first time.
"Light is all I have.
Warmth is all I have."

"They told us our gods would outlive us, but they lied."
- Nick Cave, "Distant Sky"

Through false lashes,
she bears false witness,
talks of false prophets,
shares false memories.
Don't dare dream,
she says, and don't dare outwit me.
The shadow at the bottom
of the lake, lined in gray,
some impossible darkness,
swallowed every truth
until there was nothing.
Don't dare dream,
she says, and don't dare outwit me.
Until the falsetto of his voice
carries the ash of her fears
away from the fire that created her,
the water can't help her.
Every dream is false, she says.
Every secret is dust.

I could not understand whether you were saying, "I'm fine" or "I'm flying," and so I assumed that you aspired to do the latter. That was before I kissed you, before you left me.

I slept with my fingers wrapped around your ideas, and so, in a sense, I hoped to fly. The scenery on the television matched my dreams. That was before.

Later, I could not understand whether you were interrupting yourself, your sweet mouth deciphering the best shapes, or whether a thought punched through, the meat of its fists more important than finishing what you started.

So I decided that your specialty was grabbing at the air, a fine display, posturing from the ground to get a running start, and I tried to give you enough room for your wings.