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Tell Them

You, a web of thoughts, a
carefully weighted center of the
universe. As you know it.

How it feels to map out where you
stand and where you sleep and
the slanted way you line everything up
to fall into place around your skin.

Tell me a little about yourself,
they are asking. Tell them a little about how everything belongs to you from the way you thought the rain smelled oddly like winter last night to the crinkled eyebrows that darken the neighbor's face when your grandpa sits outside smoking and muttering little blurbs of Chinese like characters will carry him back home. Tell them about the men who press themselves against you and leer at the contrast of their pale veiny hands against your hips. Tell them how you sit in pools of sunlight and feel like your bones are being set on fire. Tell them it is easy to live in this world your world and laugh if they think you're honest.
How you think that maybe all this should belong
to you but you are not sure what it means,
to belong.

You have slowly and deliberately
put everything in place with your own
two hands and yet everything is always
falling apart. In your own universe.
Isn't this why you have trust issues?

And you don't know how to explain this, how
to explain that there's only so much you can do
to know who you are in this world that for all you know
doesn't exist when you close your eyes. Like all
you can do is look down and let a slash
of dark hair cut across your face.
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