“I beg your pardon, monsieur. I did not mean to do it.” Marie Antoinette, after
accidentally stepping on the executioner’s foot while mounting the guillotine.
I did not mean to do it.
I did not mean to cause this pain, to inflict these woundings, to have dark lyric flow from my wrist and
rip this home asunder, to bring this ship to wreck.
I did not mean to do it.
I did not intend to drag you out into my deep waters, to only watch you drown. I intended mountains
to sprout from my legs, not these leviathans that choke out love. I did not intend the night to roll in.
I am the prodigal son, I know. Had I been given anything, this mind would have had it put to death.
Had I been given nothing, death would still have traversed perpendicular to this madden nature, to
clutch me at the turn.
I did not mean to fight so hard, to fall so readily. I did not mean it when I said my fists are heavy, and
my knees thrice cruel. The nightmares I brought came from the way back. I did not mean to burn, to
burst into flame when all the hands reached in. I did not mean for any of this. I did not mean to do it.
Our hands do not seem to fit so good. It seems I did not grow in right.
I did not mean to do it. I did not mean to come in and be gone, like the lightning, like the unexpected
gunshot that fills an eye socket behind a scream. I know it all to be in shambles, I know.
Forgive this horrid selfpitying look, telling you to shut it. No one is being forgiven here. I did not mean
to do it, but in these veins swims the ghost times three.
Oh, ohing orifices are howling out—oh, oh, oh all is coming up like a heave.
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a.mariekaluza@outlook.com
larkspurhorne.net
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