I had not felt so isolated in recent memory.
It was getting to be a real problem. Sleeping was becoming
Difficult, and nothing was tasting right.
This body was obviously trying to kill me, I realised,
And it would continue to do so until someone could love it.
It didn't have to me, understand.
Things would probably be better if it wasn't me.

My house was shaped like a square
With walls to the North, the South, East, and West.
I hoisted myself up from the floor one night,
Via the intricately laid system of pulleys
Which hung about my ceiling at the time
And I began to breathe in the direction
Of the North wall.
There was really no symbolism in that until I thought to create some:
North, on any good map, is up,
And that is where I hoped the whole endeavour would lead me.

My breathing was thick, and the air insistent
Demanding
With indiscriminate loneliness as license for the intrusion.
Carbon dioxide carved him out for me.
In chunky pieces
He fell laguidly from the wall. The surface was rough
And for days I finished him, lovingly, with a nail file
And toothpicks and adhesive tape.
I dripped his skin with wax
From the emergency candles I keep around
Until it was warm, and smooth
And gave him eyes of my thumbprints.

He seemed a ready king of men
His spine straight, arms steady and folded
Mouth contemptuous already
Of my dependence.
He was beautiful but I still returned to sorrow every night and I thought,
He must not be finished yet.
With a needle and indigo blue thread I sewed his lips together
So he couldn't ever yell at me
And then--
He was a king of men.

He was, and I wanted the whole neighbourhood to see my handiwork.
I've given birth to God, I said, and if not true birth,
Then, a coat of paint will make it do.
I led him through the North wall--
His natural mother, one might say; he'd left in her quite a hole--
And out, into the waiting clouds.
How nice to be leading the mighty.
How nice he should need me.

With each step his strength grew and
Between the derisive changing of his taped-up grin
And the slow, luxurious melting of waxen skin
He shook me off. I might have been his mother after all.
Clinging, I slid down, neck to shoulder,
Down rod-straight spine, slick, smooth and gleaming,
Down on wet pavement, down on cemetery grass
Dew-covered, slick, smooth and
Gleaming

Cast-off like a casing and surpassed easily
By mine that should have always been mine
By mine that I had no further right to.
I wrapped his arms in skinny, knife-sharp wire that sliced his plaster
And must have hurt him. My friend was bleeding wax.
My fingers were sticky with it.
I bound him to my back, savouring the digging of the wires into my sides,
And on torn knees crawled for icy unseen Northern water
In which to drown with him.

I could feel the snapping of indigo blue thread. I heard it ringing in my ears.
He told me I was worthless,
That I hadn't done this right,
That he hadn't proper use of his left arm and that I had better learn
A bit more about the creation of things
My eyes filled with plaster dust,
My throat with dew.