Babalon Working

tenderness

                                          meat falling off the bone

I am not alone in this

                                                        when I say I’ve cried on the subway

              coming home at night

                                                        & it wasn’t because I wanted to

the way the scenery runs against

                                                                      the window is like seeing visions of the future

I dip my feet in a stream in summer

                                                                      & my white skin glows beneath white water

I am

                            perhaps clawed              probably soft              never honest

their futures

                                          I carry in my eyelids

I am made entirely of an explosion in Nevada

I failed from personal jealousies             I failed from respectability

I failed from indifference to Work          I failed from indecision

I failed as elsewhere is on record

              I had no child & so the world is not yet perfect

There is something

                                          in the pit of my stomach

                                                                                               & it is gnawing me

telling me not to grow bigger                 not to stop walking                   not to sit down