Member Poem

There are certain patterns on their skin—thin layers of freckles, scattered across them like stars, stars that boil in the night. Some constellations tell tales, ones like the heroes in the sky, but most of the stories are left to their scars; they have patterns too, but not in the same way as stars in the night. No. The patterns of scars are patterns of things done twice, maybe more, things done before they knew
or after.
 
I don’t want to feel like this. But we never do.
 
Hit her again
not once
again
and the moments collapse in on themselves
blurry, opaque, images layered upon one another
The hand is slower in one
faster in another
But they’ll all go fast
in the end.
 
We race to unzip these,
to wrangle the knots between
once and again
We strangle these variations with the unwoven string
withered and fraying, its fragments slice deep
ripping through flesh in slivers—
feel the collapse of bone beneath, the throat
caving in, air replaced with
damaged tissue
Strangle it and strangle
it again
Always again.
 
We don’t want to feel like this. But I never do.