butter handcuffs 

they tell you that you can walk out of 
the sea of bottle caps & teeth
any time you want. then, there is 
the loaf of bread your mother baked
& expects you to eat. then there is 
the threat of turning into a pie crust.
butter stains on lips. a melted moon.
bone broth. broken rib. 
a shackle is a nexus of decisions.
it is wrong though to think those decisions
are of those wearing them. instead 
i become a site of other people's choices.
i can hear their thoughts aloud:
do i want to be a god? do i want to be
a gender? am i hungry to make a spoonful
of this little skeleton? what a lovely sculpture
or else a knife rest stop. sometimes a light bulb
will turn on so yellow that we all
taste like the butter around our wrists.
softness can be mistaken for mercy.
mercy can be mistaken for divinity.
we eat the bread like good girls. remove
our ribs. rooting the adam out of the body
will take more than this gesture.
"will you help let me free?" i ask what i think
is a person but become a bus stop. 
why is it so hard to conspire?
i thought we were supposed to be
the most mutinous species.