I Want To Howl

I want to howl—
to wake you from your half-masted sleep
and force your white flag up or down.

I want to peel away the sky
and find an unwritten metaphor
for everything I could never explain,
and then maybe re-carve all
the lines on my face so that
you could help chisel them away.

But I’m tinged red
from the numbers on the clock,
binding me to the sadness I never feel
from the look on your faces
when there’s nothing left to say.
I’m bound to the familiarity a child feels
while clinging to her new mother’s skin,
and to all of the sickening sweetness
that chains me to vacantly belonging.

I have never felt bound to you.

I want to howl to the moon and the earth
and the stars
and I want them all to howl back at me

because one idle moment and I’m
howling at the sea,
wishing it had worked
to keep us from the shore.