& all of them begin      with a shard of glass

     or the thin edge of a steel blade,

something sharp enough

    to carve away the skin we      share.

how about      i play the butcher

        & it can all be over      soon. i learned

it from you, dad—      this destruction

    of us by my own hand—when i watched

the blood spread      across your cheek

       like a red dahlia      coming up for air.

your long frame     arched      forward over

    our porcelain sink, razor dripping      fresh

blood into the drain; you picked at the scabs

        left littering your lower jaw burying      your scruffy

ingrown beard. & no,      you didn't teach me how

    to shave, only how to know      that the splitting open

of my own skin    could be a roadmap

       to anywhere else      i needed to be.

once, as a little boy I tried on my mother's high heels & never took them off. as a little boy, I held my mother's hands, rolled her rosy flesh through my fingers like precious stones under the halo of her lamp & I can admit this is how I learned to breathe. I watched her braid her hair like silk through a loom & make real my misplaced girlhood. as a little boy, I prayed not to be. I wanted to be just like my mother. the origin of wanting is always a dream about something we can't have. maybe the dream is that I walked until my feet cracked like sheets of dried clay, or until I made it to my reflection. & so what if it's a dream where I walk into my mother's skin & leave with her name. as a little boy, I turned into my father. I broke the mirror & misplaced myself. I spend my days dancing through shattered glass. my mother tells me I have his nose, his cruel eyes & hands. as a little boy, I prayed not to be. now, I walk through my mother's skin & leave only with her creaky joints. it is hard to tell which bones are mine to keep.

//

once, ███████ I tried on my mother's ████ heels
██████████████████████████████████████████ I held my mother's
hands ██████████████████ under the halo █████████████
█████████████████ this is how I learned to ████████████████████
████ braid ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████ my
misplaced girlhood. ████ little boy, I prayed ██████████████████████
to be ████████ my mother. the origin of █████████████████████████████
a dream █████████████████ we ████ have.

//

████ little boy, ███████████████████ I walked
through ████ mother's skin ████████████████ with her ██████ joints.
these ██████████████ ██████████████████ are mine to keep.