I envy children. Not for their joy, but for the way they cry without shame. Somewhere along the lines I learned to cry quietly—into pillows, in bathrooms. Now I can’t even cry in my father’s arms.

If only I had never let go....

When I sleep,

your voice drips down the walls like warm rain.

There is no sharp corners, no silence.

I breathe without falling apart.

In dreams,

you are not gone,

you are not distant,

you are simply there.

I can reach without disappearing.

I can touch you and nothing breaks.

The daylight lies.

It parades its facts like knives on a table:

You’re gone,

I’m empty,

the sky doesn’t notice.

But sleep...

Your face is a fevered psalm I recite beneath the moon-split sheets—cheekbones catching dusk like twin alters, eyes molten with the quiet pain of ruined summers. Your mouth, a wine-dark wound I press to my own, bleeds secrets with every breath. The bridge of your nose—sharp, cruel, perfect—cuts me open again, again. I kiss the corner where smiles hesitate, where longing festers. You look at me lik...

I press my hands into you,

not gently, not kindly,

but as if I’m breaking skin.

You’re a carcass.

I mold your spine crooked on purpose.

I stretch your mouth too wide.

I carve your ribs open with a fingernail.

You were never meant to speak.

I do not ask for breathing,

only obedience,

only pliancy,

only flesh that yields to my command.

You are violence dressed as vision.

I make gods out of you

t...