Acknowledgement

When my
hands shook,
heart beat close to the skin
where it shouldn't be
where it was far too thin
but I couldn't say why.
When I
cried suddenly, provoked
by nothing as people are
long after someone dies,
wore a hat all the time,
hid my eyes;
jumped at the door,
the toaster,
the person at the door,
when I opened that same door;
held a knot in the throat,
in the shoulders high and tight;
couldn't speak,
didn't breathe,
couldn't sleep,
wouldn't sleep,
then slept, with dread,
with a knife by my bed.