i fell in love with the stars
because i never thought they'd let me down
until one night it was cloudy
and not a single sky diamond could be found

so i became quite fond of the sun
and basked in its warm and comforting glow
until one day, the sky kept crying
and the heartless sun refused to show

so i decided to fancy the moon
thinking the moon would always come through
but every day it faded away leaving the night
the way it left me; empty and velvet and dark blue

so as you see, i'm used to being disappointed and alone
i feel abandoned each time i stop and reminisce
and quite honestly, chances are one day you'd leave me too
so that's why, kind gentleman, i decline your kiss

I can see it.

The Skin encasing my heart, pulsating.

It races.

I struggle for air.

I'm no marathon runner – I'm a chronic smoker with half a lung, with a heart in a condition much worse.

I shut my eyes, in a faint attempt to attempt to faint and shut myself off from everything that I have ever laid my eyes on.

But I still feel it.

I press my finger tips against the skin encasing my heart.

And I wince at every beat.

glass slippers shatter.
i asked my godmother for
a four-oh-one-kay.

Heartache spiderwebs
across the landscape; the glass,
cracked, weakens.

i am a creature of inconvenient lumps and angles trying to fit into the suit i thought i would wear when i was young enough to think thoughts like that.

but the suit doesn’t fit and if i try
if i try to force it on

if i pull it over my head squeeze it over the swelling of my thighs and sharp joints of elbows and the jutting points where the bones of my wrist perch like islands beneath my skin
if i let it smooth the bumps and soften the the angles into something more palatable to the eye
will i ever take it off again?

or will it be a permanent fixture impaled
on the spikes of my own personality

will they say on my tombstone
“she lived. she
was ugly grey but not so hideous
that you would notice her in a crowd,
or across a chasm.”

is it better to be naked in all my deformity
finding no comfort from the cold but a life more
spectacularly violently lived

i would be depraved they would scorn me ridicule me
pity me my foolishness

(but i would feel every glorious rash of the wind. the cold would snap against my skin and raise small bumps and when i breathed the air would seem sharp and clear and real).

the suit is waiting on the back of my closet door.
i turn over.
the mattress holds no comfort for a body
so marred with crooks and cusps and declines.

atoms cried for
"home, home, home."
you came. brought
the rains that fell
on blessed fields
and wet the dirt
and crushed the
petals. listen: "ah,"
they gasp, and "here
it is," and "home
is the thing that
hides in the rain."

When God sings
the birds fall silent;
to listen,
then boast how
they would have sung it
better.