Ballade

I slice from temple to mouth through my cheek,
and everything disappears with the blade:
all that I've done that was stupid or weak.
I peel my palms open from cuts I've made
and expose bone - how can I be afraid?
I invite explosions, make the bullets shriek
through me, in at the heart, out at the back;
along with the skin and ribs that so weighed
on me, the guilt will burst out, wet and black.

And now, without my spine, my hands, my face,
I can fall asleep just as my eyes close -
a heavy, dreamless sleep, an empty space
with no memory, no questions, no prose;
the instant of obliteration knows.
No one sees me without my eyes in place;
I'm clean for the first time without my skin:
there's nothing to hold the dirt in.  These blows
are safe; by morning, it all grows again.