When surgeons open my body
They’ll find
         E v e r g r e e n
Snow capped mountains with endless expanses of ice

They will find a certain
              s t i  l l n e s s
No whispering between the trees
No flowers singing in the sun

I’ll be dreaming of the heat
I’ve been missing in my fingertips for so long
I have frost bite
on e v e r y s i n g l e o n e

When surgeons open my body
looking for my heart
they’ll find S t a t i c
A silence that e c h o s  
A kind of silence you only know after tragedy

I have
An  e   m   p   t     y  space
where my lungs once were
Holding  N o t h i n g
but a vigil witnessed only by one small girl with t i n y t i n y hope
All fading away
in the abandoned town
I have resting
between each breath


- When the surgeons open my body
- They will find many many secrets inside

I have seen friends tie themselves up to the bedposts of lovers
who would never give them a second thought
If all their pretty untouched skin wasn’t right there
To bruise and taste at their convenience
we have been told there is no other way for us
to hold any value as a person unless someone wants us
I have seen friends cry so hard they puked
as they untied themselves from those bedposts
their wrists had been rubbed raw
and they still left their heart behind in hopes
he would return it with his own in tow
I have seen friends make themselves
names in a little black book
A faceless body  
They will let you treat anyway
you want because it’s better than alone
I have seen friends
Break themselves for this twisted messed up version
of love that’s being sold to us


- Who taught us how to do that to ourselves
- Everyone, everyone, everyone

Creep inside her body.
Start by pulling out hearts and souls.
Carve up and out room for yourself-
in what you recognize as a graveyard.
Unearth every other decaying thing buried deep within
make them sing-
bring them kicking and screaming.
Let em have enough sun they relearn how to miss it.
Never allow them close enough to keep the warmth.
You know better than anyone dead things shouldn’t have feelings.  

Crawl out of my resting place.
Dead things don’t stay dead.
When finally remembered sunshine
Stretches and curls.
Stays long enough to taste-
I revive in myself.
You’ve lived inside me
As long as this body needed a grounds-keeper.
To sweep away the moss and ivy climbing up all the tombstones.
You float through the aisles night after night
picking up unearthed ghosts to follow us home.
Your finger tips scratching against the tops
of all the dead-end versions of me.
I’m tired of hearing the wailing that follows.  
Cadaver girl,
I want my body back now.
Won’t you please put yourself to rest for me.


- I dig this grave barehanded and open sorrow
- Planting the garden to over run the cemetery
please cadaver girl
- know you are the last version of me I ever plan to bury.