like a rabid dog, stinking of neglect and the absence of a loving home
its bones protrude through thin layers of skin and fur it’s cultivated by its madness
how did it become like this?
how did it deteriorate so horrifically into such an unrecognizable thing?
a curse?
it thinks sometimes that it has been cursed, either by others or perhaps, more frighteningly, it’s own mind.
choice?
no. it can’t be that simple. surely nobody would choose this.
a twisted combination of the two?
it ponders as it prowls, on the hunt for a resource it won’t allow itself. just passing the time really.
children stare and point at the state of the animal’s ragged form, whispering about cause and effect.
a pitiful thing,
like a rabid dog
frightened by the bass of its own growl
it scares itself
does it scare you?

it rots inside you like the vile heaps at a garbage dump
decomposing, digesting
no flowers grow from this haunted garden

you use your body’s already limited resources to filter this waste you put into it
straining to process your own gluttony
your weakness

it fills the pristine void
causes your sunken vessel to swell and bloat
it causes what was once clean to become something grotesque
something shameful
something rotten

It no longer bothers you—the dull aching of your flesh, the sharpness of your bones. Bones protrude the skin, enveloping your tender self and vital organs like a cage, a protective barrier of stone that has risen from the soft earth beneath.

This cage is not new, it has only grown harder with the test of time, slowly expanding. Protecting.

Protecting what? Protecting your soul?
Is there anything left worth saving?

You hear a bird’s cry in the distance, the shuffle of carnivorous creatures looming around it, licking their lips, baring their teeth. They do not hide in the guise of darkness, no—they stalk in broad daylight, staring through the cracks in the barrier. Your terror is only a byproduct of their patience.

Fear is the only thing that penetrates this cage, making every little thing under your skin crawl.

Yet, you feel at home in this cage. It’s one you built yourself, and you get used to the fear. For the most part.

It becomes a kind of comfort, knowing what’s inside and what remains out. After a while, you think you’ll be okay here.

You’ll survive.

You find solace, knowing the corvids wait for your demise.

All your life you have been shrinking, if not outside than in.

You cling to a purpose, desperately—your nails break and your fingers begin to bleed from your tight grasp.

“Why am I like this?” you ask, not for the first time. Your own desperate voice resounds in the chamber, sinks down into an endless void.
You’ll never receive an answer.

You’ve been trapped here your whole life.
This flesh suit you call a prison, others call a body, a home. Something that is supposed to be so innately yours, something you were born into, expected to grow, take care of. Something you loathe.

This home is something suffocating, something you are all too aware of.
You’re drowning.
You are drowning in it, suffocating on this thing you cannot even name.
You cannot escape.
You run from this thing that you are becoming, this thing that you are trapped in.

“Please, God, let me out,” you beg.
Just one breath of air, you plead, and you can return to your cage.

It’s a cloak you can hide under, one you find solace in, even after all this time.

You could live your entire life under it- a pillar of your lonely crusade into oblivion.

“Is that really a life?” They might ask. You don’t know. Definitions are a subjective and fickle thing, a mess of arbitrary jargon designed to help us understand. Often, they work to the contrary.

If the past is any baseline, they all lie through their teeth. Is life nothing more than an infected wound, slowly killing you from the inside as you desperately try to patch it? Something perpetually healing and never ‘healed’.

It begs for a resource it is not allowed. You can feel it twisting, turning inside of you like a voracious beast, one you thought you had conquered long ago, arisen from the dead.

“It’s your own fault,” someone whispers to you. You are alone in your room.

You turn on the lights to feel less alone, your only company the voiceless dancing entity within the small bulb. A presence not really there, yet comforting nonetheless.

“Why did you do that?” something else will ask. Something deep within the boundaries of your mind, though it is not you. It’s not you, yet it becomes a part of you more and more each day, growing like a malignancy, a wronged adversary with a penchant for revenge.

It haunts you, clings to your bowels, takes your guts in its hands, and squeezes. It permeates though the entirety of your body—it seeps into your blood, it infects your brain. Simultaneously. It’s everywhere. It’s nowhere.

Is it really just you?

It can’t be. It can’t be you, because that line of reasoning doesn’t make sense. Why would you do this? Why would you do this to yourself? Later, they’ll ask you the same thing. There is no answer you can give them that will satiate their curiosity.

You don’t even know yourself.

a gasp of lavender
reaches the parts of me that belong to you
smoke that twists, twirls, transforms
a weapon fleeting but lethal
will it glow inside like it did before
will it emulate your touch
sacrilegious
the false wisps of a former life
rush under my skin
into my blood
it’s not enough
never enough
not you