amnesia

your picture is a violence against my fingers

polaroid fading into bright relief carving

away the woodchips of a scream on your lips

brought to light by police brutality

a forest of fists and yours growing dead

listless with moss over the roots

your eyes light up like a line of cocaine

on fire under the bathroom sink

powdery white stuff organized by

the blades you also use to cut yourself

disinfected by drunk nights flattening

yourself under the wet bedsheets

a silkscreen of dreams etched

into your skin tattooed on your thoughts

why does the bumblebee land on your cheeks

like magnolias and put its lets together

in prayer to someone who sin’t there

as it watches its hive burn down

golden — golden — fire — honey — dark

you’re out of your hearts as black and

gold honey drips like greek sweets

left too long in the oven now they’re burned

γιαγιά keeps a picture of christ

in her purse and a cross around her neck

like a chain of bondage or a sign of homage

to that violent building that cuts the sky

and prays with its kees against the pew

and guillotines the rest who don’t do

what it says to and laughs and blows

the candles you lit and stuck in the sand

like a birthday boy or god’s arbitrary command

mom never smiles in her photographs

or laughs anymore now her child’s

a whore and they keep to themselves

and μπαμπάς just takes more and more

photos of frowning people and sticks them

in the photo book of dead people

and dead churches and dead love

my hands on your face feel like two scissors

cutting away your hair and the sweet looks

you used to give me and your eyes

that oedipus can’t look through anymore

and the orange splotches of disgust inside

growing out like fungi on something that died

and logs of labor and molding regret because

one day you opened the closet full of photo books

and found it molded by green and orange eyes