See me through the ground glass 

Turn me upside down

     Flip me against the mirror

Make me 

A bruise

A tattoo

A burn 

Of this very moment 

I am here 

Have you captured me?

In each of my gradations

By the hour 

By the minute

By the second 

Do you have another frame? 

Another exposure 

Do you want to 

expose me? 

Slip me slip me under the tongue of the negative 

Cast me into a shadow of myself

in orange and brown and black 

Dissolve me into chemicals on plastic skins 

Harden me into silver crystals

In the darkroom 

Noxious fumes choke out your eyes and throat 

Singe your nostrils until they water 

Let my flesh decay 

I don’t care 

I am held forever 

In your moment of carelessness

My own image against your own eye 

Cropped by the viewfinder’s permanence

It narrows the periphery

It sees me in isolation 

No one has known me this way before 

As if the world were peeled away

To the pedestal I was made for 

Can you see me in my godlight? 

My halo of hair in after midnight fluorescents  

Can you discern my figure through the haze?

Defend me 

Cover me 

Paste over my unspackled parts 

I don’t know how you do your magic 

How you look into the machine 

And pull out life 

How you draw through the ropes of your imagination 

And put me back together into puzzle pieces 

I am a question that is never found 

My eyes 

My cheekbones

My lips 

You taste me with your watching 

You beg me without worlds 

My eyes dilate 

I see myself in the pool of that glass eye

Swirling ever closer to center 

But I still don’t know – 

Are you, real human on the other side of this?

Does your breath align with the camera’s click? 

Your organs
Your viscera
Your gasping 

Those two torn holes in your stomach made by 

The bullets that never escaped you  

Your death is slow 

shuttering in time lapse 

before our eyes 

Hold me 

In this cradle of metal and glass 

Steal my image 

Make me 

What do I say when I do not speak

What do you see 

Can you feel my fear? 

Like a lion is eating me 

Like the horizon is falling on me 

Like the air is shrinking around me 

You disappear behind the machine 

And I’m trying to catch my breath

The camera (or is it you?) 

Unblinking 

I will not cry 

I will not shake 

I will not scream 

I will not fight 

I will not fuck 

I will not bleed 

I will not sing 

I will not pray 

I will not plead

I will not deny 

I will not give 

I hold myself for you 

My eyelids get heavier and heavier 

I will not look away 

I will not fall asleep 

I grow dizzy looking into you 

Nothing has dimension 

Please stop 

The film flickers and jitters 

Very well then 

I decide 

If this is what you want 

I hold completely still 

As the roll advances 

I decide you’re not looking at me 

I am looking at you

Then, I burst into laughter 

I can’t take it anymore 

My hands over my face 

I shake my head 

You know I can’t endure it 

To be truly looked at that long 

Without the diversion of laughter 

Or the pinball action of the crowd 

I look back at the camera (at you) 

And know I’ve been beaten

Okay, I smile 

And compose myself

Look at me now