Oxygen is a metaphor 
is an element 
of mystery: O, oh  
 
dilating its two pupils. Please.  
I’ve been practicing forgiveness, 
rehearsing it in my room. 
 
It’s okay, I say, 
if it doesn’t really happen. It’s okay 
if I just chop up the bodies  
 
in my head. I mean of my enemies. 
But it’s my head floating  
in my head in a pool of blood. 
 
It’s okay to be horrified 
and still do it.  
That’s why horror is a genre. 
 
So I reach into my own heart 
just like I’m supposed to 
to feel the gelatinous layer, the fat 
 
under the pericardium, 
digging in with my fingernails 
just enough to really feel 
 
it’s already ripped, 
a balloon wet on the inside 
with someone else’s spit.