Petrified for the last time,
I cut my brittle heart out
with a pair of nail scissors,
clipping through the keratin
down to the quick —
the sharp, thick, constant sting
of raw flesh, ribs spread
to see the moist, shady maw,
the red, white, and blue
empty ring box of my lungs,
a “yes”
like soft velour, all
tumescent and convex, pressed
out with the fragments
of vitreous gifts
you poured down my windpipe
(unintentionally vitriolic),
gem shards, cold and hard,
and I am scarified inside out.

My heart, airlifted
from its zone of alienation,
wails and trails lank Titian locks,
a red forest, scorched and floored.
Still, the dead marble lump glows red
and ***** like blood under nails.
You are subdermal —
eternally, infernally so.
Put apples in my cheeks, speak
but do not
listen, I glisten —
first with sweat, then tears,
then soap suds. I shed
my skin, touch fresh markings,
milk patterns. Half blossomed
rose bud,
dismantled, curling
up on myself,

you’re out of the woods.
I pull up my hood, drag my feet
out of the mud, bind
my open chest with the rest
of my ruddy cloak and,
sanguine, let drop my spleen
into the puddle I leave
behind, all dark
with blood and bark. Your bite
is not so bad
but, oh darling,
what big teeth you have.

the morning star i see glistening in
trapped condensation between loose panes,
glimpsed through a sliver of lace,
is no angel falling over
london city,
just an aeroplane, and the silence of
people kicking and screaming
their way home from dreamier locations,
lisbon, or somewhere
the sun is already awake. they too are
weighted with clouds, pillows pressed across their faces.
in space, all our eyelids are
feather light, we breathe comets,
my lunar skull suspended
between this world and the eternal
dawn. this is how i fall asleep.

Sometimes your mother will look at you
like a dead language, some untranslatable
character. Speak anyway.

Sometimes your burning heart’s smoke signals
will make her weep and splutter,
or pass over her like incense, slightly
too sweet, and thick with silence.

Hand her an apple.
Know she might choke before she sees
the core.
Feed her anyway.

Sing your hymns with windows open
when the house is ablaze, do not
suffocate. Gasp through carbon,
remember who gave you your
stardust: you are
heavenly. Burning bibles
purges nothing, and screaming
into pillows
is not a prayer, precious girl.