Because I wanted to be the shade of lace
that hugged at my arcs and ridges,
blushing deeper as you peeled it away
from my skin.

Maroon,
because it painted the
the constellation,carefully planted
down
my
spine

and coloured the speckles of tiny stars,
huddling beneath the fortress of my jaw,
while the others were lost,
but cradled safely
in the dimple of my collar bones.

i will have entered my eighteenth year
knowing that
it will be my fourth year of sorrow.
there is a riptide coming for me
and i can see it from the pier.
this poem will have so many periods
in the hopes that it will be a flimsy defence against the churning
obsidian mass that is coming,
coming,
coming.
advancing like a predator.
everything is different from before;
there is a dewy mist that settles on my arms.
oh, my poor arms, uncovered
and riddled with goosebumps,
not even a cardigan.
tell me how i can stop this despair from getting me.
did i mean to say getting to me?
stop this despair, stop this-
i am so tired, but there are no seats on the pier.

my insides unfurl
and the dripping mess that follows-
i touch up, with just a li’l bit of saline solution
and oh, isn’t it
pretty
like you wanted me to be all along
like i could never be all along
it’s a dusty kind of pink,
lilac or lavender,
i was never good at colours, i just knew their names
enough so i could spin them into my poems
(the ones you hated because they were so full of
run-on sentences and pain
there was my texas twang and my
desecration of all things religious
to make the metaphor fit)
i needed colour, more life than i could afford
it was the dowry you never accepted.
i’m so sorry.
i keep reliving the past,
what once had been
what could have been

i feel the skin sloughing off my bones;
knobby, they are.
my skin feels ephemeral, more now
than it has ever been.
i am losing weight like
i am losing you.
my hands wither before me:
all my years they served
the purpose of creating art as best as i could
but now they look like dead roses.
my ribs puncture my skin like throns.
my husk is decaying,
dying,
dredging up memories of the youth i never had.
could it possibly be that i don't want to die?

i could drown myself
- find solace in the underworld
of sirens and the ironic clarity the sea
has been known to provide, for all that
it has murky waters-
but my demons know how to swim.
they'd hoist me up
to ensure precious lungfuls of air
would be rammed down my throat.
survival is subtle ******.
i am immortalized in the moment
before the surface tension breaks.

my lungs are put through the shredder:
such a harsh word.
shred.
all I am trying to do
is to make confetti.

i feel you weave fear in me:
a sharp pinprick, an unsettling feeling,
then the thread enters.
sow it such that the two fabrics
become indiscernible from each other;
they are part of the whole now.
they are whole now.
only snip when this occurs.
you wouldn't want a messy piece left dangling on your lap.
that would be awfully clumsy of you.