Inventory I
What have you stolen?
What tic, what response from me
did you palm and put in your pocket?
What have you stolen?
Did you collect the bits of paper you tore off
and paste them back together
on a blank page of your notebook?
Did you use the shreds as easter grass,
or as packing material?
Did you do something useful with them?
What have you stolen?
Do you cherish the fragments you’ve collected?
Do you have something fond to look back on?
What have you stolen?
Was it my eyelashes? my nerve endings?
my proprioception? my cartilage?
my chewed-off fingernails?
Do you keep a formaldehyde jar-full
of my intestines?
Do you hide them in a rotting shoebox?
What have you stolen?
Did I ever have something so precious
that you had to sever it from me to keep for yourself?
What have you stolen?
Was it difficult to choose?
Was it difficult to carry?
Was it difficult to hide it from me when I came looking?
Did you take everything from me
that you meant to?
Was it worth the effort?
Copyright © Rose Melo | Year Posted 2016
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