Twelve

12 and 12, and 15, 18. 19.

Up to the present, 12=29.

I buried them in my belly,

was filled with their love,

left them to rot there;

kept them all for myself.

It is lonely in the dark,

and they voiced their resentment:

Two blows to the chin,

then a mutiny in the ego.

They struck at 12—

whisked it away.

I never saw it again.

Never saw them, either.

12, etc., etc., 29,

I fractured myself.

Broken shards clog the arteries

that steal the air from my lungs,

or I would speak the words alone—

only 12 and I.

We were determined to build a world

out of papier-mâché;

wrote pretty and nice

upon that plaster-soaked planet.

Perfect calligraphy,

through the fountain pen's point,

scrawled awkwardly, left-handed,

upon a fragile, mottled fake.

There never was a 13.

The other years were invisible,

filled until empty

with the ways I don't exist.

29 is an echo—

Mother Earth has been smashed.

My beloveds have escaped.

That leaves

12, 12

, I'm sure you don't know the rest.