CALL ME BELOVED

Really thought I was done with the shame –
wasn’t it purged during that last blackout
like tea leaves into a bathroom waste bin –

if fortune tellers just read regrets like tarot
my fate would be the freckles on my skin, I
carry my pain like my name, I wear it close –

second grade I accepted I was all just sin
stuffed into Catholic school oxford blues –
eye contact withered me, I stared at shoes

with such fervor I knew them like faces, I
could identify tormentors from 100 paces,
learned how to hide my body my self my

tears so far away even I lost them all, numb
I wandered the darkened corners of hearts
better left alone. I’m all swan song; unsung