Baptism/ Ground Beef (No Eyes)

I scrub and scrape and scratch Trying to reveal The shiny woman Trapped within Disgust Iron rust Sunk vessel She must be there She has to be there Bright and newborn Clean and pristine Saint John Hear my prayer I lather and rinse And repeat Hoping to liberate her Hoping to be how I should They say a hot shower cures all But Can it remediate The exhaustion of the soul The looming and fear and regret the Loneliness and cold and emptiness I vomit all the bile inside Into the shower Foreign, all the words The pent up Bottled up Neatly packed away with a bow And categorized words That weighted my stomach I wretch and heave And gasp for air I am suffocating Far better than to redirect the Oxygen To that other woman Patiently waiting below Virtuous and good-tempered and good-natured She is everything I should be In my body I am carrying in me All that I could hold but All I could hold is all I wanted to forget And such misery I find myself so blind in life I find myself unaware I find myself when I know not What to do Or how to act or What to see if I could But my eyes seem stuck By my mind Who has trapped myself Into this house Of dark, forgotten sins I feel the sheets My hands can see Still, incomplete My life will stay Until I have the moxy To face my fears And see your self Which then, itself Rejects all eyes And won’t be seen But I can touch But never know Just who you are The light might stay Or maybe not I will not turn to look I cover myself with my own hair And then I wait for you to leave So I can come out of my space Without my fear Without my shame I could not lay my eyes I will not tame Or experience That which to me Is foreign Buhm