glue traps

i take one step
and the ground shifts

like memory does

when you beg it to stay.




the world spins

the dervish turns,

the wheel grinds

& i stay glued.




once more,

the stone beneath the threshold snags my foot

as if it, too, was carved

to remember my stumblings.




the world spins

the dervish turns,

the wheel grinds

& i stay glued.




a rat in glue traps,

squirming for direction,

for a god unmoved by the dance of it's drowning.




whose hands spun this fate

so taut it strangles my sighs

before they’re even born?

i am held hostage

by the divine jest of becoming.

how do i walk to my beloved

with hands steeped in tar,

with knees bloodied on doorsteps

that never learn to yield

i am both bruise and salt.

both ache and the hand that causes it.

tell me

what worth is a soul

fate will not claim

nor death release?




to be still is to decay,

but to move is to be swallowed.

and for mercy i whisper

into the ear of my beloved,

that he might remember my dust

before it joins the silence he never breaks.