stage one: autolysis
all i know is that it is cold in your basement. i can't tell because i cant feel anything but the space where you used to be and the fingernails lodged in my spine.
soft electric whirring and rigor mortis.
there is nothing you can do about this, you will not forget this.
you will cower from it.

stage two: bloat
recovery has long passed by now. there is a garden of loathing inside of you and it has overgrown / there is a ocean of fever inside of you and it has overflowed.
the body can grow to twice its size in this stage.
this is its way of releasing the pent up anger/sadness/longing you felt as a child.
your organs whisper "lets stop" and "im tired now" and (?).
they sigh as they expand. they are at peace now.

stage three: active decay
85% of brain growth occurs between ages 1-3. this doesn't mean anything as the years pass because when you are 4 you will liquefy and when you rot you will liquefy again.
(child deaths are always the saddest.)
you will find someone who loves you and you will return the favor; you will give everything to them and save none for yourself.
this is the riskiest gamble you will take / this is the only gamble you are forced to make.
you will let this swallow you. proceed with reckless abandon because
being cautious will hurt more than fingers on bare skin and flowers tucked behind small ears.

stage four: skeletonization
why has someone who has been hurt so badly choose to live so softly, to remain vulnerable? weathering can destroy you,
even the smallest wave can destroy the largest rock with time.
maybe she wants to be hurt, maybe she likes the cold basement, maybe she lets other people hurt her because she's too afraid to do it herself.
she seeps into the earth / i seep into the earth.
this is not the place where we died, but this is the place we will be forgotten.

stage five: funeral
lawn chairs / popsicles / fireworks. she stopped aging when she was small, she still pins baby hairs back with barrettes and cries for her mother.
she stares straight into the sun / she is an optimist.
she is soft, but do not handle her with care.
dig your nails into her torso,
**** her and cut her up into pieces and shove her in plastic bags / the lake where she swam as a child will be her permanent home.
she will fall in love with you chained to the bed, she
will love you endlessly and with every part of her,
every piece of her you tucked in her mothers garden.
i think it's time to
sleep.

i love you, and i am learning to love myself. please be patient with me. i am trying. i am trying. i am

i will carry this around until it kills me; ill let it teach me to be patient while she bares her teeth and snarls at me through the fog—thick and unnerving, sick and diseased in its attempted clandestinity. it stares at me with hollowed-out eyes and i suppress the pity filling my gut; i treat it like a newborn, like livestock, like slaughter. i admire the way its ribs protrude as it exhales; i compliment it on its drooping posture. it smiles up at me, teeth gleaming, heedless and giggling and soft in its membrane. it taunts me with love notes, stained carpet, a mess of pink plastic that presses me into the pavement and returns me to childhood; suddenly im ten and nothing is chasing me. i cover my body in bandaids; i wear my “tuesday” ****** on sunday and **** in my bedsheets.

i trickle where he
needs me and ooze where he
doesn’t want me, blistering

blistering like i always have on my fingertips,
swaying and tripping, pinching him when
he puts cigarettes out on himself—

relishing in the hypocrisy.
i feel his aura, resisting against me like magnets,
softening my skin like butter and

pleading with me to keep quiet,
he’d never admit that he’s scared but
he cries when the wind is too strong and

his shell walks beside me.
i cry when i'm scared
and i can't seem to reach him,

abrasive. abrasive, only in theory.
id let these fluorescent lights touch every inch of me.

i press my fingers into peony petals,
feeling their density,
cold, even in summer.

you talk like you mean everything you say.
you feel like the sun, you feel like
warm water in kiddie pools and

grass on bare feet, messy,
muddy, just like the color of your
eyes and

nostalgia tastes sweet but
its hard to wash off of your hands.
summer is just around the corner and

i feel it like ive felt it every year since i was nine.
i allow myself to say that this is more than just a scrape.
i allow myself to realize this hurts so much worse than

falling off my bike.
(gravel in my palms, my mother kissed my bleeding hands and smiled.
this is something she cant heal with neosporin and a kiss on the forehead; the only person who can help me is myself.)

i take baths in peroxide and still dont feel clean,
i wake up in the morning like ive just been reborn,
i think about how everything is so beautiful.

i lay under the peony bush. i let the falling petals baptize me.
i promise my mother that i'll be okay and
for once, i believe it.

when she speaks her voice oozes.
humid, sticky, heavy like
fog. i beg her to talk and it bleeds into me,
seeps into my pores. cocoons me in sludge.
i feel her yellow teeth sink into my skin and i feel my fingertips buzz,
i let her tear into me. i sigh into her canine teeth like
they’re the rim of my bathtub.

i feel her scraping the filth off me,
layers of sedimentation in
bacteria and saliva.
it collects under her blackened fingernails and
pools around the edges, soft,
revolting. she peels off my epidermis and my
blood rises to the surface, basks in her presence,
makes me dizzy in its hubris.

i feel all of her, i feel her teeth grazing my
small intestine and i muster a whimper.
aren’t quick deaths supposed to be painless?
like ripping off bandaids or
snipping umbilical cords.
i admire the holes she’s left in me,
tracing their edges, treasuring her bite marks,
realizing that this is all she’s left me with.

she gave me the privilege of a shallow grave,
sticky with topsoil and my own fermentation.
i become aware of my body, all my ridges,
open wounds, angry with infection,
******* liquefied tissue, cellular debris,
pus-filled and trembling.
i make friends with the maggots.

i press on my gashes and watch decomposition seep out of my pores,
i feel my new friends feeding off me, my skin hot with embarrassment from all the attention,
and i hold my breath just to feel the strain of my lungs.

they work their way up to my jaw, giving me soft kisses down to my dermis. i think of her one last time, and how she was too soft,
too soft and yet brittle and harsh and
alarming. i think of her body, all of her parts conjoined with
scarred lacerations and freckles.
i feel her eyes dart over what’s left of me. i feel her breath on my skin.

i ask the larvae if i taste sweet.
they assure me that im rancid.

in the summer her mother cries out her name,
as the harvest comes in.
rows of pure indiana corn,

swollen, pollen-filled and
waiting. festering.
in summer, she sits hungry and

wanting. like a sick dog she waits at her doorstep,
sweltering; silent; whining through molars
and drool.

she hears her mother call her name again and
through the spit she imagines
a billion corn-seeds

crying with her. she walks toward
the porch and sees her mama and
all her broken fingers.

she feels the pregnant stalks call after her;
they use her name and spit her mistakes back at her
like sunflower seeds.

she opens the screen door; her head aches,
she smells
of grain and pond-water and

baby powder.
she feels her arteries and
extends her elytra,

jerks her thorax toward the setting sun,
breaks all six legs on
impact.

her pollen-friends insist they're laughing with her,
they poke her limbs.
they watch her writhe.

"oh, isn't this beautiful? how gorgeous
you look with your
husk shucked off you."

she nods; silent. how flayed she is,
how vulnerable, how innocent,
like a pig led for slaughter.

i left her on the side of the road near the rookery in southern indiana. her body was still warm, not as warm as the time she told me she wished she had a thousand teeth but not yet as cold as the time she grew them all at once and stuck them in me. she taught me many things, like how to forget and how to see through the cataracts and necrosis. she kissed my face and told me i was beautiful and boiled me in a metal bin inside the barn and watched as my skin separated from my bones as easily as slicing butter. she assured me i looked prettier this way, all bones and flaying meat and a thousand little exposed teeth i had no idea were in me.