It feels like ants are crawling over my hands and removing the skin to carry back to their hill.
My eyes are like two cotton *****, dry and heavy.
There is a blockage in my throat like a python has curled up in a ball right at the back of my neck.
And now my torso is no longer connected to my legs,
they are two separate entities.
One scrambling around the room trying to find something to do
while the other half lays stuck in bed, too heavy to even lift a skeletal finger.
The ants have take away all the skin and muscle from my hands to build their nest.
But it's not enough so they make their way down my throat, past the python, to my stomach, where they begin devouring me from the inside out.
Once all that’s left is a graveyard of bones,
the ants move along,
onto the next source for their ever-growing hill.
My skeleton is left to the elements,
well as much of the elements it can be exposed to laying in a pile of sheets and comforter.
I shed one last tear from my eye socket even though there are no tear ducts left for me to use.
My soul fades completely from the scene as the last straggling ant jumps from my skull and the python abandons the vertebrae left behind, needing a new food source to thrive.
A sad sack of bones,
what’s left of me lays in the bed as everything around it falls apart year after year.
Until all the decay is over and the process of rebirth begins.
Saplings shoot up through my ribcage
and flowers grow through the eye sockets where my tears used to fall silently.
Beauty replaces the feelings of death and dread as
the last piece of my soul is finally laid to rest.

there's a ring of fire in your eyes
that sets me alight,
leaving me yearning for the next moment that they meet mine.
and your hands roll over the hills on my skin,
creating a flat earth beneath your palms,
one you tread lightly across like it's new fallen snow.
and as the sun from your smile melts it all away,
you begin to plant flowers across the newly warmed earth,
gently allowing them to find their homes in places of safety.
they bloom quickly,
creating a trail of lavender & rose to the core of my being.
as time passes and the sunshine fades to moonlight
they thrive,
seeming to glow in the dark,
before beginning their unwanted wilt.
and as the snow falls again,
i will wait for the sun to shine bright
the next time your fire eyes meet mine.

he spoke his words like they cut his tongue and burned his heart.
his truth was found in the places that he avoided
and he could not face his mind when it would return from its forbidden forests.
stuck,
he was left to burst into shadows while his soul was consumed
by the evil of dead days.
spiraling words of hurt from mouths that he no longer kissed
caressed his ears from the grave.
he felt as if he was the lone portrait on a long stretch of white wall with no admirers to be seen.
alone,
as far as he could see.