I don't look like me, I don't sound like me,
I don't feel like me.
Sometimes it feels not like I'm in the present,
But like I'm from the future sent back too far into the past,
And I'm impatiently waiting, playing catch up
Until my body grows into its brain.
Please, god, let me grow into myself.
My skin feels stretched too tightly over brittle bones,
And my muscles are so itchy,
I want to rip away my flesh just to reach inside.
My heart clamours incessantly, hurling itself at my rib cage
With such ferocity that my entire chest shakes with its beating.
Please, god, let something quieten it,
And if it can't appease it, please, god, let something silence it for good.

-- when I have the tenderness of a writhing dragon,
he will paint flowers across my throat

as though to remind me that fires are indelicate,
and that I writhe in a prison made of open space.
-- this man will not smother me with his skin
when we sleep.
-- this man will unhinge the door of my mouth,
and kiss out the bullets stuck under my tongue.
                                                                ­               ---
whatever thousandth day I awaken beside this man,
realizing I have become the flowers he painted
across my throat, by braving my throat,

I will, unchaining myself from the draconic worry,
bring him his coffee in bed, with a smile.

I've discovered Hell, and the truth is,
It isn't a place you go, it's a sickness.
It resides within your bones
And its scaffolding is made from trauma.
The only fire you'll find is from the white-hot flashbacks
That leave you drenched in sweat that smells like smoke.
No-one lives there except you and your enemies,
And your enemies are fragments of history, unable to be killed.
Your mind is the devil that subjects you to punishment
That you can't help but be convinced that you deserve,
And escape is a notion kept only for tears;
Everything else remains trapped.
Hell is being held within the cage of your own body
And killing yourself trying to break free.