The column

I was dreaming feverishly as the column divides me

Pain that shoots and runs and tosses

We cut ourselves open

For our wombs to remain whole

I feel the column slicing my brain apart

My baby is protected by my heart(and lungs and mouth and legs).

I dreamed I was being photographed

As an artist,

My masculine hair was growing in

I love to think I looked like Frida Kahlo,

As I felt my column jolt through

As Matthew and Melissa

As myself and my beginning

My mirror was balanced,

Not askew.

But I’m awake all night, every night

With this seething column

gnawing at my fingertips and biting at my forehead

Like little rats

Pretending to only take a nibble,

The pain of being two instead of one

A holy love of God,

Red-blue ghost submarines into my brain

Coughing out sane lullabies

At my gnawed ears,

And I am feeding my column

To be given new life

To give new life.