I will give everything for you:
my life,
my mind,
my energy
as you consume what little is left of me.

But does the forest cry as it is torn apart,
bough by brittle bough?
Does the parent mourn the child
it never got,
even as their Ghost so stubbornly still haunts
their Home?

(Don't you hear your Child's steps?
The floorboards bring attention to each spectral step.
Does it bother you that the planks that cover my Corpse
weep louder than you ever did?

And does it bother you that it was the silence
that hurt worse than the splinters?)

Does the child have a right to weep
after selling their soul
to the god their parents worship
(to the very god that abandoned them)?

Does that
"I told you so"
sit nicely on your tongue now?

Like an old dog,
I've waited for your return, lingering by the door.
I've waited for the gentle hand of a childhood
that remains foggy and distant in my mind;
How long has it been again?

7 years is a long time in dog years.

At Home, the gas lamp flickers;
bodies huddled 'round its quivering light.

It smells like death and oil,
but after so long of worshipping it
as Safety and Love-

You learn quick to mistake
Hurt for Home.

Let me put it this way, Little One:

You,
of flower petal lungs
softened and wilted
with soot and smog-
breathe in air darkened with Death.

Simply not meant for this world;
                                  for this life.

This world,
this life,         however,
is all you've ever known.

(You are a creature of habit, after all)

So:

When each breath is a wheezing, rasping gasp-

When each bone is brittle and aching beneath the skin-

When each second stitches itself into your being-

You will still curl 'round the dancing flame of the Gas Lamp.
For its warmth is familiar,
the quivering candlelight cradles your face
with the tender hesitance of a lover-

And oh,
isn't it lovely?

To be killed so slowly
in the arms of a Gentle Death,
my Love?

To let your mind be cradled,
carried by hands that are far older than yours,
my Dear?

To be led by a God's guiding hand
to a sacrificial altar,
my Lamb?

My Nana always said I had good skin.
Fair skin,
littered with freckles ("Angel Kisses")
and soft with baby fat I've yet to grow out of.

I have my Mother's hair,
soft and red like blood spilt.
Strangers always gushed about how pretty it was.

Age has not painted me in a lovely light.

I wobble on tip-toes,
trying to reach the top shelf.
My fingers are stained with ink
                                          with paint
                                          with graphite
                                          with charcoal-

My nails are broken and soft.

This skin binds me to a history
I can't help but hate.
The mourning, the grief
The anger, the ire;
The desperate pleas to go back
                                     to hide away.

I'll listen;
I've always hated confrontation, anyways.

I can't rewrite my history,
nor can I turn back the needles on my watch.
So I'll rewrite myself instead.

I'll dye my hair until it's fit for a museum.
I'll burrow into my flesh and crown the wound with jewels.
I'll make my skin a canvas until you mistake me for art.

I'll do all these things
until I am lovely only to myself-
Until you flee from my presence
from the sight of me alone.

I'll remind myself its better this way,
as I surround my Ruins with those
who will gaze upon the spectacle that is my Self,
and weep-
Love unbound christen their tears and for Once

I am Whole