The bruise on my arm grows darker each day.
Death is just below the surface.
Yellowing and turning a shade of purple.
Collecting and decaying.
The others will arrive.
Ready to replace.
A new army.

-AbbyB.

The rain falls.
Tapping at my window.
Welcoming me.
Catching a glimpse of my adolescent face in every drop.
The shell supports everything.
Thick iron bars crisscross.
They form diamonds.
Metal coils around the muscles in my face.
All I see is yellow.
Brain twitches.
Fan blades spin in the drums of my ears slicing the aroma of euphoria.
A rib cage slowly ascends and lowers.
But it is not mine.
I don't breathe.
Summer doesn't exist.
Only Fall does.

Scuffing shoes slowly make their way towards a hazy destination.
A few jokes break the relaxing silence of lovely company.
Searching the clustered banks of the shoreline.
Illegal trespassing.
Breaking glass.
Hairless tennis *****.
Years of smoothed and broken decay.
No wind.
Rising tide.
All ours.
Happy smiles.

Boiling water concealed only by imagination.
Oil oozing from a bloated shell.
I'm afraid of forgetting life.
Hiding, erasing, altering.
How desperate one must be.
Lies fill their mouths no sooner than blood fills these veins.
Love escapes their hearts as easily as ink on paper.
Bones crack, the fluid is gone.
Eyes blink, the future is history.
These weary pupils.

Shadows play off of the dark, cold walls.
Vertical lines perpendicular to this young face
Only make me more aware of right angles
And their comfort.
There are no leaves and yet I see life.
Buried, blown away, lurking.
The branches reach down with their claws
Making me feel small, inadequate.
A bitter breeze biting at  our day old bodies.
Slowly sinking, slowly dying down.

- Abby B.