Allegory of the Cave

In the hole that I unearth on Sundays,
I find the remains of you, naked
and vaguely resembling

my father. Figures. Even
in poetry, I’m a fucking cliche.
Horror would not be the word

to describe the stirring of your sins
with my fingertips.

Like a blue candle
your apprehension flickers at me, and like
a tiered cinema, my childhood unspools in a film

that is obscured and unwanted.

Would it be cliche to say that
when you smile at me, I feel like I am back

in the alleyway of FamilyMart, sullen and drunk?
My breasts would be new and sprouting, and hot red
oil would drip all over them. My breath palled with pain

and heat, and like heat,
my skin tears like tears
of belladonna.
How simple this was:

anguish burning as burnt skin, the color red,
as a religion.

At night, I’d lay on my balcony and stare
through the slits of the railing..

The skies were always starless back then,
but that feeling always found me, a feeling
like your hand on my chest, or 風油精 at the nape

of the neck, or my father’s name, whispered
by my mother’s voice.
This I could name, and this I named

over and over again.
Back when I was not to be reckoned with, all leather and laced
boots, letting anything play, letting

anything play

over the choked, the shouted, and the whispered
names. Like the names
of my father and my mother that I would
choke, shout and whisper.

Gazing at you in the dirt, I want to strum my wrist. Let a
chorus of pinkies play the slits on my skin.
The most romantic thing that I can say to you is that your
face reminds me of when

sadness rushed to the surface,
as red and as thick as raw meat.

Your face reminds me of a word

I’ve said and since forgotten. A word that I’ve
tried to remember, to say, bravely and without restraint.

Maybe you’re my cave, maybe I’m your sun, or maybe
we are both just lost and listless,
two descendants of Sputnik,
no words exchanged, no
words to be heard.