I will fall in love with the doctor who will make me stick out my tongue
and raise my arms over my head before tapping my knees with
the hammer and informing me that there is no cure for my sadness,
not even pills. When I was thirteen I learned
that Cleopatra committed suicide after her lover Mark Antony did the same.
There are two versions of her death: One, that she had an asp bite her,
which with its venom brought sleepiness and heaviness without spasms
of pain. And two, she consumed a mixture of hemlock, opium, and wolfsbane
to end her life. Sometimes I cup my hands
around my wrists and hold my lifelines that way in silence,
just to remind myself not to open them before my time is due.
The first time I undressed for a boy
I cried because he was able to see all of me, not just my body.
And in a way that was like seeing the inner darkness of the moon,
beneath all that burning luminescence, or stringing lights
on a Christmas tree without worrying which of my scars
they would illuminate first.
So I will always remember the hardness of that boy’s chest,
the thin bones of his legs as they wrapped around my waist.
Now, five years later, I still see his face in the mirror at the doctor’s office
that the nurse makes me look in
to see if I can still recognize my own face.
And maybe it’s true that I still stare too long at the row of scissors
when I’m shopping with my mother in the craft aisle,
but maybe it’s also true
that Cleopatra couldn’t possibly bear to live without the one person
who made her feel good enough to carry on
for just a little while longer.
