no woman's land

IN THE FIRST SEPARATION OF DESIRES,

loss stretched like a hand to touch everything i should want to forget. time abandoned me in a wilderness of memory like a frightened horse and i became both witness and witnessed, a body of light collecting exiles like coins. i wandered the darkest regions of myself. i found rot in the roots of the tree of desire but i ate the fruit without a serpent to tempt me. i devoured the carcass of my girlhood before the vultures could. i swallowed the moon. i learned to ferment my rage like wine. i placed my hand into the mouth of loneliness. i burned my adolesence at the stake. i devoured the devourer. i watched my shame grow teeth. i learned to fear what i want and to want what i fear. i washed my body in the streams of limbo. i remembered how to survive and i survived to remember every desire i have ever had. i learned to want is to destroy. i learned to destroy myself.