Temptations Of the Flesh

Even with The cross Around his neck And the childhood Anxiety over An imaginary man’s judgement His thoughts Were more iniquitous Than my own He would delineate the way Shower droplets Languidly glide down my skin Leaving behind A flushed path On my pallid complexion That no longer Wears the perpetual damage Of past men’s temper Because his eyes Can’t fervor over A dilapidated temple But he’ll keep The maze of scratches My nails leave As it clutches The outline Of my skeleton While whispering His name In the inflection That causes claustrophobia in the breath as it stumbles in his throat He would sketch Those scenes for me In my head Except he enjoyed Exorcising Every trait of me Cutting off Every strand Of bleached hair Make my hands Sit in gray water Until all the black nail polish wore off Ripping the piercings From my ears To fill the holes With the chants of hymns Fading out the dense screams I was raised by But it all Fell flat More than how he felt about the earth It made me wish those words From the mangled pages In that book Were hand fed To me By him With coquettish eyes Leaning into Every idiom Until My stomach Feels abhorrent From the nocuous ink As it snuck onto My tongue Just so I can say I spit his deception Back into his mouth And even then His thoughts would still be More iniquitous than my own