I want to believe you

When you say

You are loved

As you weave

the rain all around

my open mouth

And I close my heart

to the slaughter

And the shudder

Of the hailstones

But I crack

Along with the rest

of the world

Inside this fun-

House of mirrors

Smudged and stained

By the blood

of our love....

**It all started, as these things often do, with a request: kill the others. **

****

**The “others” harbored various states of defiance on the eve of the opening ceremony—some promised death upon their competitors by training harder and with more might than I’d ever seen back in my hometown of Angelina, where we hunted squirrels and rats; some entailed mutterings or outright shrieks to avenge thei...