I hear you in the morning.

I hear you in the smudges of my mirror,
between the creases of the sheets.

You’re smiling.

You’re dancing in the milky paths
of my cereal bowl and tapping on
the white marks of my thighs.
You’re hooked to the fraying
loops of my denim,
swinging on the ends of my frail hair, dizzy.

They talk of beauty.
The beauty that was given to you,
the beauty that was not given to me.

I heard you in the change room.
I thought you went away,

down
down
down

the drain stained yellow—peeling copper,
into the black abyss swallowed whole and
gulped back to the place my mother
told me never to go.