Historian

[ginalimabeana]

When I was younger, the sleeves would be purposefully arranged
So as to reveal a tiny piece of the whole deep wound.

Now I sit at twenty-two, bereft of a secret.
All my art, gone to white lines.

Pain doesn’t negotiate.
It issues demands.
It wears a small black mustache.
It ran my house like a well-lit brothel

With no nights off,
And the men howled like animals,
Relentless, drooling, the pin.

Orphaned body,
I claimed you, vandal,
Thief with a knife

I thrust your head into the cold air
And together we escaped,
Ashamed, but alive.