cutting great neck

this isn’t the picture you found mounted on the wall
with its black border as thick as a finger
so firm against the white, like gloss.

when the slabs of metal rose behind the glass
in bulging black blooms, windows that fleshed out light
as if it were blood to congeal,
did you really hope with all your heart to live?

when even the sounds of skin tearing
filled your stomach to the brim with thoughts
that sat like folded paper balls slowly falling apart,
did you really think you could break through?

when even the shadow of your straightened body
poured across the painting like a ghost of a structure
and levitated in it so corpse-like—when even
the night said it would be dark—when even the moon
desiccated into a strip of sour milk—
when even the earth early in the morning stretched
like the ocean and you couldn’t see anything
but the glint of eyes in the distance—
did you really think that the sun could never blind you?

this isn’t the picture you found mounted on the wall,
this isn’t the nail that bent into the plaster,
this isn’t the palm-center that ripped,
or the eyes that burnt on the thirteenth floor
of your innermost dying dreams;
this isn’t it at all. when even deferred dreams
crush, did you really think
crushed dreams could ever be deferred?