Unobserved

The television is a rectangle of ink

now that the sun has gone down in the west.

It shows me a person I’d rather not think

is the version of me that I like the best.

I’m hunched like a vulture or some kind of thief,

my chin on my chest and my shoulders rolled in.

It’s a posture of comfort that looks like a grief,

the way that the skeleton fits in the skin.

I stood up and felt the blood rush to my feet,

peeling the denim away from my bone.

The red lines on my thighs are a mapped-out retreat

from a world where I’m never entirely alone.