stretching, melting bones

clambering across the sky

cold as nighttime stone

gravestone grey, sickly white

it has to know i am alone

haunting me through to dawn

on my mind since i was born

I’m taken.

I’ve been taken advantage of,

I am taken for granted,

I’m always going to be taken
with the way men who do not care for me
look at me thoughtlessly with their dark eyes.

I think I knew you in my past life
I think you were my guardian angel

And I feel like now it’s my turn
to be looking out, and I would do anything to protect you

We’re not so close
but you mean the world to me
and I would do anything it takes

And what I mean by that is
if it meant keeping you well

I would tear the
pulsing parasites, the
disgusting
brown fleas from your fur

even if you just came to me for that

even if you didn’t have time to talk after

even if your fur was held together mostly by filth

even if my teeth were neon yellow and rotting and it burned each time the top row met the bottom

even if your coat was as long and unwiedly as the matted hair of a rotting corpse steeped in mud on a heatstroke inducing day in the wilderness

and yes, even if you didn’t need it that badly.

i reach out and touch golden
- golden, not blonde -
locks of hair,
spiralled into ringlets
with small dewdrops
(the size of baby mouse eyes)
scattered atop
and it kind of resembles
honeysuckle after
the lightest drizzle

she’s in the dirt now
but you can’t compare her to a dead body
she’s a goddess
the goddess of spring.

i asked why she was dug up
and the woman nearest to me says,
“i kept watering her, hoping she’d come back to life.”

you can’t compare her to a flower
she belongs to the underworld
she’s a goddess of that, too.

but more than anything
she’s like salt.
the land is barren ever since she died.
there's been a ripple in the earth

last week everything within a six mile radius
all the trees and plants
the weeds and fungus
all the birds and the creatures nesting
have withered and yellowed
run or flown away
or rotted

this week it’s a seven mile radius
so the men get their shovels
and bury her again
and we continue to do everything we can
but it all feels a little too late

with crossed arms i look to the skies
and wonder who we should call on
now that persephone has died

i feel you touching me
the way i felt
the skin on my head
knitting together
right after my brain surgery:
not much at all
in fact so little
that it fills me
with fear

courtney love syndrome:
“why do i obliterate
everything i kiss?”