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How You Might Use It Against Me

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My sleep had become confused, the darkness mistaken for light, and so I listened to the sound of your words more-so than to the actual words themselves.

 

I thought of the cactus flowers that reflected moonlight and the long-tongued bats that came to feast on their sweetness. 

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And as I began to grieve things that I'd yet to lose, I built a room that was always full of moonlight so as to remain awake, always there for you. 

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Looking out my window, I caculated the age of the surrounding canyons and outcroppings by assessing the layers of sediment, adding it up, until even your face became like a cubist rendering and I could finally see you in your entirety. 

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Such a beautiful mess, your bedroom. 

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And so I spread like a neon butterfly, undoing the sutures so as to empty my inside in the way that one might dump an ashray, I became willing to undergo a facial reconstruction and a brain transplant until even this place would feel like coming home. 

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But as I surrendered to imagination, I became distorted like a 3D planet flattened and rendered as a trifold paper map, so I withdrew my affection, afraid of how you might use it against me. 

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Writer

Photographer 

First-Time Human

JUSTIN D. OAKLEY

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