falter

is there anything i
wish more than
for anyone to see some
kind of light beneath
the facade my body
creates? under
all angles, bones, muscle
and veins, organs
covered
by skin and
membrane and the
softest and the coarsest
of hair,
under scars and moles
and eyelids, the curve
of drying lips
there lives, battered
and dim, just a
flickering girl
of a heart too tried
and all too tired
to portray a real man.