your eyes bloom like peacocks

what is it we stand beneath?  there is fire everywhere.  and people crying behind curtains because we aren't supposed to feel anymore.  there are men with guns who are pointing them at people.  what is it we are doing here?  tell me.  there are people with emptiness like lakes inside their stomachs.  whisper it slow.  we are a mess of tears and love - of violence and death - of sleep and anger - wrench these doubts from my hands!  i am curled on the floor like a dress.  i am sick with this.  i want to be able to love you even as you stab me, but this rage is a long sea unwilling to subside, and it has demands like the simplicity of honesty and the passion of love.  do not ask of me the hard things.  i am not ready for them.  not yet.  i have built a machinery of shadows and they live like horses inside my veins.  i am happy, i want to shout, i am happy!  but the language to say it in does not yet exist.