there are scratch marks coating
consumer wrists,
coat-hanger wives and drunken dinner party lisps.

i want to believe in everything.
i want every god to be mine.
i want everything beautiful beneath my tongue,

where it will sit as a pill till it dissolves and
gifts me with the high that i've been clawing for.
clawing consumerist wrists and-
coat hanger wives have affairs in rooms made of marble
with men in brand name ties
while holding rosaries between their thighs.

i want to be a part of everything.
i want to hide something ripe inside of me.
i want to fill my insides with nectarines,

the stretch marks will be signs of adaptation.
for once there will be evidence of the way
skin bends and breaks when you're changing yourself-

out of a cocktail dress in a bathroom with a cross
dangling from the collar around your neck
and pieces of pearls still stuck inside your teeth
from eating the insides of oysters without thinking of
cons-
equences
just sequined dresses.

i pray to all the gods in my collection
to make me small enough to swing from her
chandelier earrings
so i can watch divorce rates go up decimally, first hand
while she pulls him closer by his crown of thorns
to retrieve the bite of
apple
stuck inside his throat.