How fiercely can I spill my love
Into this raging whirlpool
That neither hears or feels me
Spinning in its icy grip

How long will I whisper this lament
Fear myself alone in your arms
Find and lose my trust with every day
Plead for it and toss it away

And scramble for it in the dirt
Until my nails blacken and crumble
Until my fingertips are bone
Until your name is ****** on my lips

I can understand her pain, though I pretend I cannot.
We are the same, terrified by what we crave,
Emboldened by what we can inflict upon ourselves.

I can imagine her, the tears she cannot fathom,
And the pen that explodes into life as she writes
Her own trauma, dreams herself a dance with death,
Kisses that bloodied fist as it bursts her brightened lips.

I was born on a border, a fence between
The two places I might have belonged.
I am the stranger in the doorway,
The lightless flowers blooming in fissures,
Two sides of a rusted pingin -

My bones are not heavy enough
To anchor me to any place - I float above,
Watching scentless flowers bloom
And records turn in silence,
My limbs hanging limp as the others
Dance below.

I can’t find the words, though I feel them
Lurching around my chest like ships in a storm,
Bouncing off my ribs and
Scraping my throat with their masts.

Eighteen years in a paper skin,
An insubstantial prison, a swathe,
Drawing black rings around my eyes
And wearing **** like a badge of honour.

I’ve been eroded all my life
Washed away by winds and whispers, reduced
To this transparent skeleton,
Heavy with this rotting chameleon flesh.