Sink

I held my breath until the bruises tore through my skin
and laid waste to my lips and throat.
Each shudder of my lungs stirs up
the razorblades shredding through my entrails.
I have only you to thank.
Even if I had a voice, I wouldn’t use it on you.
It would only echo back
and deafen me.

Our thin crowd promises no allegiance,
watching with gaunt eyes and a hungry absence that
penetrates the self-sufficiency I deigned to maintain.
Perhaps it is the shame that they empathize with
or perhaps it is only that they see their empty smiles and
the fine, crisp lines of their limbs, elegant and gangling,
reflected in my current state.

They rally around me,
the thin bystanders
with their thin, meager silence.
And yet you remain before us, a paragon of arrogance,
believing that you stand solidly on a moral high-ground.
And refuse to see the quicksand beneath your feet.

You’re pulling strings
and wasting time that doesn’t belong to you,
and I just let out my last breath,
hoping you’ll eventually give up.

When the rush is exhausted
you sidle away, so confident and solitary.
I can breathe.

Each breath courses through me,
dislodging razor blades and sliding along protruding ribs.
I breathe
and watch you sink.