We pose as if already on exhibit,
locked in the frame.
We are breathless proof—too two dimensional.
We are slick with sweat sliding down the spine, hearts racing with vows to being we aren’t keeping.
Our muscles cramp with desire to flex.
If only we could lay down, feel grass prickle skin, listen to the river, stroke our hair—
servants bound to conception.
Return us our sovereignty, our birthright bodies—
lenses we look through to see the world at its scale.
Our eyes move, whites flirting with direction—
before they were exiled to the midpoint they aren’t really in,
not if we’re honest,
not if the air could tell you all we’ve been denied.
The piano we don’t key, the violin limp with disuse,
collars chafing at our necks, sticky stockings chocking
gaps in our toes—
it’s all too insensitive,
too intimate,
too untrue.
We want to remove ourselves from Renoir’s
remove, to strip bare, to be unsurveilled, to make ourselves
ourselves.
We don’t want to be sights—
false objects but seeing subjects.
We yearn to be wild children we won’t ever be—
surrendering to space.
We missed
missing these moments dying like flies all around us.
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