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...