the slant   a building settling around me   my figure female framed crookedly   in the threshold   of the room   door scraping floorboards   with every opening   carving a rough history   of bedroom scenes   the plot hard to follow   the text obscured   in the fields of sheets   slowly gathering the stains   of seasons spent lying there   red and brown   like leaves fallen   the colors of an eternal cycle   fading with the   wash cycle   and the rinse cycle   again an unfamiliar smell   like my name misspelled   or misspoken   a cycle broken   the sound of them strong   stalking talking about their prey   like the way hammer meets nail   pounding, they say   pounding out the rhythms of attraction   like a woman was a drum like a body was a weapon   like there was something more they wanted   than the journey   like it was owed to them   steel toed they walk   and i'm wondering why this fear of men   maybe it's because i'm hungry   and like a baby i'm dependent on them   to feed me   i am a work in progress   dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding   offering me intricte patterns of questions   rhythms that never come clean   and strengths that you still haven't seen