I wake inside the rumor of myself— a throat unbuttoned from its blood. Some mornings, the mirror hisses choose. So I do: I choose the damage that glows. The room smells faintly of rust  & raw meat. All my faces file a complaint. Each one shaping holiness  from a different wound. I inventory the artifacts: a blister shaped like a confession, a spine rehearsing its own refusal. In the kitchen, a knife hums in its sleep— its dream: a tongue that never stops splitting. History wants me...

don’t call it necklace   if it left a ring of sleep     where my breath should’ve lived

(after the snow, after the silence)