The road darkens quickly;
it turns and sways
and tapers off into an unseeable zenith.
The gravel cracks
and rolls underfoot.

This road peels skin off of knees. This road
rips palms to shreds

but I've traversed it many times;
I can recall each boulder and each
protruding limb.
I nestle between the crags and

I bathe in the starlit puddles. The water is
murky and littered
with bottles, with pens, with Barbie dolls.
It is lukewarm.
I revel in my shivering, pruning skin.

I walked along its path
yesterday.
I closed my eyes but
I listened well.
Unholy silence.

I lifted my foot and triumphed a
broken branch that always exists. I could run
this road blinded and gagged.

I dipped my toe in a puddle. Time
wouldn't let me
bathe.

Darkness fell beyond my eyelids and chilled
these fragile shrouds.
I leapt over a crag. It has grown
since I've been gone.
I fell into its depths. It isn't a crag at all:
it is the end.

This road has broken off and it
dangles children's toys
off a precipice.
I am still falling. The wind lashes at my eyes
and dries out my tongue.

I am blinded and I am gagged, but
I do not know this road at all.

I hope my blood stings your lips
I hope it’s bitter at your tongue’s tip.
And even though I say so,
I know my cruelty will never let me go.
I want to hurt you like you hurt me
but I’m afraid it’ll be worse—
can’t you see?
I’m filled with wolfsbane
and salivate when you puncture my vein.
Lap it up and tell me it’s good
just because you know you could.
I’ll wait and smile at each dead minute.
This’ll be my first victory—
I don’t want to miss it.
It'll be sweet to lay and lie
and even sweeter to watch you die.
Then I remember, I am a hybrid
and you are a wolf.

i’ve been choking
on air
years before
you came by,
so don’t feel
too special
when you hear that
i’ve died.
then again,
it’s you
who injected
empty syringes
in my veins
while i ached,
and it’s you
who held my hand
in their wakes.
i always knew
you were scared
but i never knew
you were
a prison guard.
you coaxed
my sins out
when it got too hard.
then you'd slam
against
my cage,
but you left
again and
everything’s
the same.
im still a fish
washed up
onto sea.
and each breath
takes something
from me.
so did you help
or did you hurt?
i guess
i’ll never know.
and as much as
i want
to rejoice
and wither
on the sand,
i still wait
for you on
the scorching land.
(because
with you i’ll
always feel
fetal--
even when
i pray to find
my own needles).