Everyone asks why I didn’t leave,
knowing what I knew, his unspoken threats
beginning with ta gueule, which, it turns out,
doesn’t mean your throat, but the way
a person says, when they hate you,
“shut the fuck up,” along with a look
counting the ways I’d have to fold myself
into myself to end the day alive, his chin
in the air, sideways scythe of a smile, and there’s
his throat laid bare, but I can’t do it, twist
my hands around my own wrists instead,
refrain of Noir Désir in my head, a song I still
don’t completely understand, each mouthful
of French a little bit gone, enough that I
can’t tell you why the singer says I have
to get used to spring without swallows but I know,
each time the song comes on in an American café,
supposedly far away enough from him to be
safe, I look at my hands, I wring my hands, think
I hear the singer say the prince gaslights everything
so Sleeping Beauty can’t negotiate, dreams
of leaving, her eyelids frozen shut, forget she ever said
anything, okay? because the dove’s wings are full
of lead, he sings, and we’re all going to drown
in a puddle (you can drown in so little, you know)
but we won’t understand what we’ve done
until our throats explode, or does the singer mean
your mouth, your face, shut up, but this next part
I know by heart, it isn’t turn yourself upside down
just to say the right thing, no, it means you will never
know, was I on the right side? wrong side? the refrain
he’s singing now over my head in the safe café,
à l’envers, à l’endroit, à l’envers, à l’endroit.
