I watch as the droplet eases itself
down from the wound, into a strip of paper,
scarlet on crimson. some might call it a stain,
but this is no mistake, I will fold myself
in, like blush on cheek, I will make it look real.

is it pathetic to imitate what we can never achieve?
the night sky gloats in silent mockery. the trail of
her dress drags along my dry eyes, and she burns
a hole for every jewel I cannot reach.

is it a sin to covet a sin? my fingers run along
the grooves of my carved pupils, and I can't
remember anything aside from the warmth
of a star in another orbit.

I fold my three hundred and fifty second paper star.
Does the moon believe that these are her children too?
Or are my paper cuts for naught? One day, I know
the paper will be skin and the star will be a sun.

but until then I will bleed, and until then
I will have to suffice with a constellation of scars
that glow in the dark on my ceiling.

she covers my eyes, and not even light
dares to slip through her fingers.
she tells me to look harder, deeper
and she whispers sweet everythings
and suddenly the void she has gifted me
seeps through my eyelids and
leaks into my sockets, and I see
everything I have ever wanted.

she holds my hand like no one else has,
palm to palm, and she whispers empty rhythms,
psalm to psalm, the ghost of a dream resting
its head against my chest, bated breath,
vapours of impossibility, tickling, fooling me.
her fingertips bite into the soft flesh, but
the only pain I feel is her/my hand around my/her neck.

when illusions collide, do they fall further into delusion?
or are they decapitated by reality?

they call her helplessness,
I call her finality,
and she tells me she is mine,
but I know I am hers.

they tell me to put a band-aid over it
but I've long been accustomed to *******
the blood from its source, pain into stomach,
I stomach the pain

byproducts of observation, disgust and fear
meted out like a rush of an open wound
but I pay no mind, I have my own tears to deal with
and I patch it up and sew my hairs into knots
braided into false closure, just to stop the loss

but nothing I do can stop the surge,
in every breath I lose the will
with no knot nor braid, I've neither fought nor prayed,
still the blood keeps flowing, and I just keep swallowing

skin like plaster like plaster to skin,
a growing clot can only be a dam so strong
the iron lungs heave, and I exhale a gale of rust
but I shall not cease moving, no matter how much blood I've lost

How odd is it that we draw hope
from celestial creations falling to their death?
As we wish upon the shooting star,
it breathes its last breath and shines its last light,
and collapses into extinction, save the fading trail
etched into the night sky.

Yet as we too fall further from the orbit of life
into the space of death, will we too burn.
Then at least we will have drawn another line
in a constellation far too grand for us to see.

And when I have finally returned to cosmic dust,
and begun my journey of falling once again,
then I pray that even in death, I may be
a sliver of descending hope, illuminating
the unknowable skies.

the silver blade hangs above my neck,
tip to apple, edge to skin.
as another assault accosts me -
I savour the bleed, for one rarely
tastes life itself.

and yet even as I hang
in the balance, my lungs refuse to give,
I groan bubbles and moan smoke,
a sputtering engine doused in oil.
I drown in soap, a futile attempt
to finally be clean.

but even bleach blunders a bloodstain,
and one cannot erase what never was, nor
what always was. I drain myself into the gulley,
if I cannot leave, I shall at least escape.

yet I am stuck in the pipes, tidal motion
flushes me with poison, a final notion.
as death courses through my veins,
and I can no longer rhyme
as I run out of time,
it seems that one
cannot simply
choose to
die.

Only when the sun puts its head to rest,
do I truly wake. As the last gaze of eyes
that aren't mine shift their focus, my lungs
inflate with relief.

I am released from the tethers of perception,
and I am allowed to be alone with myself. Only
the night knows who I am, and only then
am I who I am.

To be free is to not be seen,
to own is to not be known,
to be is to simply, not be.

As the sun aches awake,
I retreat into the prison of my mind
and I will be who I need to be.