The Lamb

I keep looking for innocence 

In the boys that look like you

Thinking one of them might be able to

Kiss it back into me

I stand with my cup of poison in the corner 

And swallow it down with the words of each one

Who’s eyes resemble yours 

Their whispers indistinguishable from one another 

Their humid, intoxicated lies breathed heavily into my ear

I do not believe any of them mean it:

When they say they want me 

When they tell me I am beautiful

Yet I fabricate a smile at their pursuits 

And when my consciousness 

Is flooded in beer

And false tenderness 

I let them recite your lines 

In the scenes you probably do not remember writing

I keep searching for a different ending 

To the same story

Maybe their touch will not burn 

As much as yours did 

Maybe the whiskey on their lips

Will not taste as bitter

They do not notice how I stumble up the stairs 

Or your unseeable handprints

Branding my exposed exterior

By now my vision is hazy

And my senses numbed 

So I do not care that their stained sheets

Peel at my skin like sandpaper 

It will not feel like my carcass they are ravaging

If the walls are melting

I can let them try to inhale 

The demons out through my mouth without screaming

I can surrender to their invasions 

Relinquish any lingering naiveness

If the ceiling is spinning 

I will fall asleep forgetting that I longed for this stranger

To settle into the vacant imprint 

Left in the mattress beside me

The wreckage will be 

Lingering for me in the morning 

I will inspect my torso:

Your signature will still be there 

Adjacent to his unfamiliar, raw etchings

Still another arbitrary, blurred outline of a person will appear 

I will search for your brown eyes in his 

And allow him to trace over the scars you left behind

Because I am the lamb

That seeks out the wolf