The grapes haven't spoiled yet, but
will now never be tasted.
The cut flowers
still have some perplexing
life in them.
Hanging from a
tree branch, I find a message
written by a dead woman.
There's a bookmark
embedded between the
pages of a hardback, like
Excalibur lodged in
stone, and I
cannot pull it out.
It hurts to walk along
certain corridors,
past certain doors, with
no one behind them
calling to me.  
The radio is tuned to Ghost FM,
and nobody with a pulse
gets airtime.  
Digital photographs of
fading analogue memories.

Yet still small shoots persist
in breaking through this dark, cold dirt, and
inexplicably blossoming.

It's like having phantom limbs,
All protruding from random points on your body.
Sometimes it's like having limbs where there should be nothing,
And your brain is telling you that your hand must've taken a wrong turn.
I want to touch parts of me that don't exist
Outside of the empty vacuum of dreams.
I want to drag the scalpel across my own skin
And rip out the heavy weight of the tissue that drags me down.
Most of the time it's something I fixate on multiple times throughout the day.
Sometimes the worst-case scenario takes hold,
And on those days I've got a serrated knife in my hand,
I'm trying to find a reason to put it down.
I almost always put it down, if only out of vanity.
If only for the return of sanity.
So I breathe, I try to gain more air than is possible
Because the heaviest weight tends to be lying on my chest.
I breathe enough to return to passive fixation,
Where it's like an obsession and I'm stalking my own downfall.
I just want to touch the parts of me that don't exist.
I want to feel that they exist.
I need to know that I exist.

there's a rhythm behind
these sunken eyes
thundering  storms without a voice

where red ribbons are tied
nooses swing from the sky
gasps are lost in the dead of white noise

notice cracks in your skull
thoughts are foggy and dull
clouds will echo a slumbering plea

and until you've woken up
with your mouth sewn shut
you won't know what it's like to be me