“Why don’t you say more?”
he asks, or something to that
effect, which prompts me:

“That’s space I don’t want to
take.”

           He chokes up a chuckle.
As if my body is my soul,
materialized. As if
my body is my intent.
As if muffled violence doesn’t
force my body into nonexistence
in the commonplace public spaces
to sit and be and be ignored
–airplanes and bus benches–
while careless bystanders
stand by.

               As if he didn’t just
see me on the news, headless
as a ghost story, beheaded like a
heretic and cautionary as a tail.
I will eat you like the alligators
in the sewer.

                     My boundless
voraciousness will

                           catch you.

Freakish, held out.  Extended
like an arm full of thick

                                 blue veins.

Look closely.

    Memorize me so you

                         never forget

                                          disgust.