Time moves like a wounded solider tip toeing on shattered glass
Each hour is a new bullet hole in the delicately paper-mache'd memories that cloud his withered psyche.
Each minute he's forced to watch indifferently as hope and craving rush out of the freshly open wounds, leaving his body in the form of thick crimson blood.
Each second brings a new broken bone
scattered pieces of you along the bathroom floor.
They find their home next to the empty bottle of whiskey,
another lost cause,
another part of the puzzle,
that will never be found.

I'm getting better
I'm learning how to eat again
The weights are still in my closet,
and I binged again

I promise you
I'm gonna stop
I'm not gonna die
But I think I'll go purge

I swear I'm fine
I'm telling you, I ate
Don't believe me, whatever
But I truly am gaining weight

Okay, so maybe I lied
I don't want to stop
I want to be pretty and thin
And even perfect

Pneumatic bliss,
dissolution on a solenoid whim,
electrified soul as the tape ejects.

© H V Swan

Bones like in a cemetery
Among the living dead
Only now the bones
Are walking
And functioning
A human skeleton
Or as some say
A walking skeleton
The ghost is anorexia
She has taken over me

Way down south
beneath the line
where stories muddle up
with time
there are some trees

leaves of green
and flowers white
decorate the
southern night
from these trees

branches marked
but not by time
burned out by
jute and knotted twine
from these trees

close your eyes
and think when
these trees
were weapons of the men
these trees

nothing grows
out from the root
of these trees
no strange fruit
on these trees

once the fruit
that hung up here
filled many folks
with mortal fear
of these trees

not apples, pears
grow here today
and no strange fruit
of Billie Holliday...
grow on these trees

I've learned things
like a flame is coldest
at its tip
right in the middle
is where you get lit
the quickest

and
someone who
admires the curves
of your feet
is certainly someone who
was worth meeting

also
when you act like you don't care
the world acts accordingly,
loses meaning,
refusing so much as a glance
at your stare

mostly
if you don't wish
to be stuck
with a name you've created
for yourself
there are means of depleting it
if you remember the lessons of
placement
appreciation and
passion

Our attraction is automatic
the physical tension is palpable.
Your poisonous thorns try to hook in
and burrow deep underneath my skin
but finally I am immune.
Though your eyes light my heart's darkest flame
now I have strength and we won't be the same.
You're the perfect kind of toxic
but now my only thought is
I'll only allow you to be a friend.
You better savor that last kiss babe,
because it's never happening again.

I want my friends back,
But the thief named
adulthood stole them
from me.