your greatest attributes were in fact
just me!

i'd lap up an apology like it was saccharine nectar.
i beg for my self-worth to be untied, unscrambled,
unknotted from perceptions of
strangers and eyes, that linger
and push inward, scorching my skin.
Lo i remain,
pensive and fickle
begging to be your humble, healing servant.
Please let me help you. Please let me save you.
I'll dash my own bandages from my wounds just to set yours.
Tell me where it hurts.
I tell you to not think of me, i'm not worthy of the thought.

my old pleasures turn to pain
twist my ankle, make me buckle at the knees
i’m grinding rocks between my canines
i trip up, scuffed up knees
pain roars at the wound
red slowly appears
but all too soon it’s wiped up
bandaged and clean
it scabs in a few days
but the ivory streaks and shadows
those will not leave quick enough

i am not alone but o
am i inexplicably lonely

i'll let myself fall for you,
sweet apocalypse
proud unshaken sunflower
cream clementine of dawn
cacophony of harmonies.
yours is the sunlight and the joy that day brings
you are the crimson of dusk and crescent of Selene

i’m the rook
that took to my branch,
tree of silhouette lightning,
pecking the pelt off my prey
i’m casting them away for the sport of it.
if i take off,
like how the tide that comes and crashes,
foam and salt spitting,
eventually draws back, retreating back to the sea,
i won’t return in the same familiar form.
thorns for feet, a midnight beak.
i’ll take refuge in knowing you shan’t
remember me
but i’m the rook that pierced you,
strung you
hung you on my tree.

filling my mouth with toothpaste
to attempt to lift or at least
mask the stench of bitter bile
forced up by the continuous wrenching twist
of my stomach into an infinitely
tightening
knot