To be saved         and unsaved.

To be wrapped                        in a hotel blanket         under a table

because passion. Because pain           is temporary but pride

will never abandon you.         I have started to count the reasons

we survive.                  All those fires             yelling on the sidewalk

and I never once checked my hands               for burns. I am firewood             being cut

in the rain. I am                       trying to tell you that I            was young without

telling you why.                      That I learned how to disarm a man

trying to drive a knife through the top            of my head before

I learned how to saw               through the belly                     of a tree.

Back then older men laid me on the floor and I would sleep               like their first wives.

They taught me how to steal my opponent’s breath               from the whites of his eyes.

I learned that when the knife has already begun                    its descent

the secret is to want                to die that way—

my hair parted             around the blade                      like a black river.