I do not ache with your absence.
I do not ache with your absense-
legs walk the same stride, tongues flick syllables,
Air is pressed into lungs and eyes see. We were never the same. We were never.

Tiger, i
swim at night to keep my skins
Pale. And marinate moon-dipped tundras.
Splash, ripples as i spear tides with flesh and bone, collapse into waters taut as untested brides. 'Paradise,' I'm told, though my eyes reveal but shadows upon the shores. Not to be depressing.
Stay under with me a bit longer my love.

'All glory and honor', to You, bathed me with yellowed fingers. Father.
Whips me across each molar for penance, offers me glue in the morning- the kind he uses on letters when saliva won't seal the deal.

I, the cliché, trim my fingernails with a knife and mostly miss target. Slide into various seas, daily, with tincan pupils.

Knock,
knock, its time again

Wicked, wacked,
Watch as we about-face this perfect paring because
about now
the timer ive set will be going off and, GOD knows, we CANT brown the silly crust this time. *****. Fake ghosts and roaming shores, pack them and go $i die$ somewhere with more tranquil winds, quiet skies. Earth, with you i have coalesced- alas, fae tongues have yet to forget to grab ankles and pull.

I apologize for the imprints of my claws.

Allow me to
c o l l  e  c   t.
along tunneled ceilings^ and
unused bones.
They tell me that fire
is hot**
and lakes freeze [over in winter
but I can feel
china doll shar"ds underlying
skins. (Some mornings, when I wake up too early, they've protruded a bit so that they catch against my bedsheets and ensnare us. I grab a hammer from under the bed, pound out silt-size rubies and tangles of flesh)


(Oh, mother, mother, take me in, take me in)

look at me with
       unseeing eyes, fevered cheeks,
so I reach
down into my throat and pull out my stomach.
Here. Here! Touch! Taste!
This is me! Thus I am!

I clench it in my fists. I squeeze, nails subducting into pinkish jellies.
I lunge wildly for their mouths, I smear.
~Alas, they also lack tongues.

Fridays are for drowning.
Tipsy, tipsy, let me ~shell out my kidneys.
-Says he works at the smoothie bar, looks at me, has a heroic jawline, I

stumble.

Waves lash ankles, steer comatose foams - my waist is grabbed at as i slog into waters.

Smiles, nods, propels with wide eyes.

I ate with a fork.