you are just a human

i. you lied

or perhaps your told the truth but changed your mind

what I would find is that you'd planted ghosts in my belly

I tried to leave you behind like an abandoned child

but your lie grew briers in my womb

you wily thief, your serenades burying my tears

in that back seat of your car, now the scent of leather

and your cologne

makes my neck remember bruises from your teeth

and my dreams recall the smoldering rage of months to follow

the thorns grew into muscles atrophied from fear of motion

ii. whenever I tried to speak forgiveness to myself

the words caught in the net of my throat

like the wriggling trout I was, silver in your arms

I can hold oceans in the cistern of my hands

I can bear the weight of your body on my hips,

my spine, my sternum

but I can no longer carry your silence in my bones

nor your laughter in the hardness of my muscles

I must forgive myself,

wrenching the mountains from my shoulders

I must forgive you,

extinguishing the fires I set to you with my eyes

it's so quiet as the sun rises

scattering honey'd fingerprints

across the landscape of my body

and the tracks of my memories

now, you are just a human

your right measurements again