Slip
dizzy sunbursts paint her vision
black –
someone find her a saviour
because how can a masochist split open
her ribs and rescue the heart
when she wants to watch it
s-
s
-stumble in its beating?
.
she used to think the most beautiful
thing in the world was the sun
as it blazed in glorious triumph
above a world at its
mercy:
but now she knows everything is made
from imagination
and the desperation of a mother
losing her child
to the intricacies of a mind too
twisted for the innocent
to handle.
.
she broke her neck
when she sat down on the path,
a knife in her hand to carve the
rocks from the dirt
and an SOS to the sky –
but she forgot to peel back the layers
of their eyes and they continued smiling,
crumbs at the corners of their lips,
breathtakingly blind.
.
i have lights under my eyelids –
they glow like the cheeks of those well-fed,
painfully beautiful.
i envy the way they loosen their corsets
and slip out when they want to:
freedom must smell like fresh air and
sunlit tears, i think.
.
spider lullabies circle blue-
tinged toes – glimpsing the body
curled on the floor,
the cave-in of her chest breathing in
the starlight of
sweat and blood and –
"where are the tears?"
she asks numbly, fingers circling
her ankles;
exhaustion whispers sweetly in her
ear of sleep and mornings
spent curled up in warm blankets to drive
away the icicles in her veins:
"too tired to sleep, leave me alone,"
she sighs –
and the moon turns away in disgust.
.
she swallows bubbles and
sour lies and watches as the cure
dances just out of reach:
too expensive,
too much trouble,
too honest.
and anyway, why is she thinking of the cure?
she is not sick.
.
when she breathes in,
the seams at her side snap a little more,
her bones waiting for
release.
black –
someone find her a saviour
because how can a masochist split open
her ribs and rescue the heart
when she wants to watch it
s-
s
-stumble in its beating?
.
she used to think the most beautiful
thing in the world was the sun
as it blazed in glorious triumph
above a world at its
mercy:
but now she knows everything is made
from imagination
and the desperation of a mother
losing her child
to the intricacies of a mind too
twisted for the innocent
to handle.
.
she broke her neck
when she sat down on the path,
a knife in her hand to carve the
rocks from the dirt
and an SOS to the sky –
but she forgot to peel back the layers
of their eyes and they continued smiling,
crumbs at the corners of their lips,
breathtakingly blind.
.
i have lights under my eyelids –
they glow like the cheeks of those well-fed,
painfully beautiful.
i envy the way they loosen their corsets
and slip out when they want to:
freedom must smell like fresh air and
sunlit tears, i think.
.
spider lullabies circle blue-
tinged toes – glimpsing the body
curled on the floor,
the cave-in of her chest breathing in
the starlight of
sweat and blood and –
"where are the tears?"
she asks numbly, fingers circling
her ankles;
exhaustion whispers sweetly in her
ear of sleep and mornings
spent curled up in warm blankets to drive
away the icicles in her veins:
"too tired to sleep, leave me alone,"
she sighs –
and the moon turns away in disgust.
.
she swallows bubbles and
sour lies and watches as the cure
dances just out of reach:
too expensive,
too much trouble,
too honest.
and anyway, why is she thinking of the cure?
she is not sick.
.
when she breathes in,
the seams at her side snap a little more,
her bones waiting for
release.