boa

[prelude.]

Forgiving everything, I ask not to

Be remembered, after all.

I ask her

Only to grow: to be louder,

To take up as much space as possible,

To step on some feet as she gains her

Own footing—to step on the footing of

Others as she gains her own.

In turn, the perimeter of memory’s reach is

Loosened; all floods in for her.

・・・

Incrementally, military time folds into hospital

Corners, makes her friends call home

From her sleepovers. I skulk, smudgey backdrop

To her perception. I loom, muting witness

To dimestore crime and happenstance. I ascertain

How it could all be different; I adjust

the circumference of loopholes to correspond

with the tension of my chokehold. She cannot

distinguish the faults from the favors,

the hug from the hurt.

I own this: a something not-yet-said

Shadowing away at my trachea, larynx, uvula,

While my fingers summon up

A list of throat glands. I fear to dispossess it,

Cast it out of bounds, alone, where it might,

Unsupervised, talk back to me.

Talk about me. Share my secrets, newly

Powerful, an eighteen-year-old manic

On the drug of anonymity. Such a one

Might never come back home.

Forget me—forget my soft immersive prison.

I’ve held you hostage half my life

As you’ve heard for yourself,

Given all to scream for but

Not a chance.

Forgiveness entails remembrance.

I ask instead only that

You blot your mind free of my memory,

Trample any future adversary

With all the might it takes to hold north.