the human body is composed of three elements:
the first is blood, the second is milk, and the third is feces.
the spirit is the consciousness that persists after death,
fine-tuned to the body's material frequency.
my soul vibrates at approximately 200 decibels.

i push through some dull ache
to finish my morning
stretch my muscles of their wake
press on my palms
to rid them of the throe, the throb
the flowerbed that thistle haunts
to warn other blooms against their wants

the subsets of his haunts
organized and packed away
tugged and pulled and pushed
like hefty parcels and
the tension in his fingertips
like the prickle and pop
of pins under and over and in his skin

and the subtle swell of dread
swirling in his stomach
from a nightmare he had the other night
the happenings in which he couldn't quite remember
but it bothered him more that he couldn't
perhaps if he could just remember
it would clue him in to the catalyst of the day
if his subconscious had predictive powers, that was.
but he felt like something not good was going to happen
and whenever he had that feeling–which was, ad nauseum–something not good usually, eventually transpired
and that was enough to let him know

like something trembling the equilibrium
in the labyrinth behind your ears
to pull him like his hefty parcels
left and right, side to side
the feeling would tug on him about his day
but he wouldn't change its course

a mother cooing in tune with her son
elbows rested on the finished mahogany of his crib
as the fever broke through his onesie
like my night sweats

water drips steadily into the black sink
there is no warmth here
some breathing relic of a bygone era speaks lively volumes on death;
rigor mortis racks the bodies of intent listeners
there is honey and dirt on his breath
he has been in the apiary
round eyeglasses grow brittle and their lenses blurry, closing the window of his soul to a loving corpse who cannot smell the dirt on his breath
honey and cologne
where has he been?
water drips steadily into the black sink
he touches her arm;
fleeting warmth,
bitter cold,
here again

in my lifetime i'll bear one billion children from my fervid, heaving womb
one whelp is born with sticky milk sealing its eyes shut
and a razor blade in its paw
my baby cut me up from the inside out
so i smothered him