Cruel Clothes

Laughter
is only a frayed jacket.
I tie it loosely
across my shoulders
hoping, secretly,
it will cover the scars.

Beneath my shirt
instinct cowers.
Her primal colors
breathing deep
inside a tweed bodice
of broken ribs.

Carefully crafted,
lies form the chains
of her dark, restricting cell.
My leathery soul
refuses the light
only to watch me feed her
an empty wardrobe
of patterned fear.

Mechanically,
my words
find the hardened footprints
left by her screams.
The wind
whispers freedom
under her cap of holes,
overlapping her pain.
But her oppression
laces tight
the hinges of my righteousness.
                   The truth
                   is dirty.
         And its ruffled edges
         were never
                   truly
                             straight.
With strained pleasure
I can only paint her
in backwards relief--
red-toothed smile--
on a thinning background.

I have smothered my reality
in the mosaic flavors
of her silence.
And though I sense
my own destruction
in the tearing sounds
of long, solid fabric
I cannot
move...