Raw Bodies

the doctor asks me if I want to die and I stutter as
syllables trip on my tongue, slipping on saliva, my
ticking time bomb bones, run up the odometer,
books on male anorexia have bright covers with pictures
of pretty christian moms caring for their sons, and
when I look at the woman who bore me she thinks of when
I was six and they said jesus loves me,
when I was thirteen they said he wanted me burning,
and at eighteen he was going to save me and I figured
that jesus should make up his mind about me instead of
letting me shuffle from church to office to center collecting
diagnosis like pokémon cards, trading them in
hide them between orange juice stained cushions
when our parents walk in (sorry for the mess) while
we wonder if we’re worth the trouble of them listening to
your progeny’s mechanical breakdowns and if when
they first looked at your beady little eyes, they knew
they would look up rehab centers and trauma counselors
while knotting your childhood blanket into a pretzel.
ponder it for a while then forget it, makes you scared,
makes you mad and manic and misanthropic and wonder
if your boney legs that don’t work anymore could run you.
somewhere where you can’t scare anyone. hellfire, turf war
of the brain as mother and father do not meet
your gaze at the dinner table.