They Said They Would Put Them in Years Ago

The problem with
speaking: as if anything could
be said differently.

A mouth without teeth,
eyelids not for blinking,
the feeling of being.

She became
a woman from the waist down.

Reception is key.
To be
like the bug specks on
her bedroom ceiling
that would exist
even after the floorboards were
replaced,
rotted through due to
a lack of

piping—
What of the french drains?

Oh and that
raccoon skittering at
the window one night from
the wrong side,

and all of
them sleeping.

Content; repeating it
signifies her desperate
need for
validation she was sure

that this time, they would furnish.