Self Portrait

I want to eat paint. Not yellow— 

pink. And not to be brighter inside 

but for that lips and fingers moment 

of something  sticky, loosening the rusty

hinge between letters and meaning.

to dig my tongue in the bubble gum ghast

of summer on my skin.

Like vanilla and cloves—something sharp, alcoholic

dabbed behind my ears, like dirt under my fingernails

soft hair, cracked knuckles and too many showers;

like a letter to myself and the oxygen I take up, 

the smell of a place where fires burn and die, 

a voice through the telephone wire:

unrecognizable on the answering machine,

as if it still has to coil

around

and around 

and around 

my fingers.