i would like to spend
the remainder of my days
floating
alone in outer space

past the edge of the universe
where not even starlight could reach me
and I would float in the blackness
without sight or sound or heat
forever

no gravity to press down on my
shattered body
free from the dull ache
of titanium plates and screws
relief to cartilage ripped to shreds

but most importantly
i would be far too far away
for anyone to ask me
if i was okay
or if i needed help

You gave me those red marks before I can even speak.

"I love you," you said with your voice told me that you could not breathe properly. My spine brushed the bed while I pushed your body against mine.
"I love you too," I said. Mesmerised because of you. Nervous before my hand grab the sheets, holding the lust that come through me.

It was that Monday evening.
With you, with lust, with love.
Alone.

i bought myself steel-toed boots for
christmas like it would matter
as if i could kick things like paranoia, fear and vulnerability

my whole head is making this strange, dissonant noise
it feels kind of like pressure building, by surprise

because i'm going, going, going with my
hands touching all of the things

i thumped my corroded heart onto the table and asked if he wouldn't
mind sitting with it for a while

did i know then that his body moves just like theirs?

i have blades in my palms walking home
despite how i interpret my murmuring heart
mostly i think it's reminding me to live, i think
it's especially easy to forget

i'm choking, go ahead and tell me how much you understand it

i have blades in my palms, the boots and buttons up to my neck
i can taste their eyeballs anyway and the rotting is sand
it's getting underneath my toenails now, stop just a second
the boots and the buttons might as well be silk
the way their bodies are closing in feels like absolute reliable death
i'm thumping and shivering and their voices
the way everything shifts a little as my hands tighten around the mace makes me wonder if i had ever been safe to begin with because it seems like i've only ever been trembling in anticipation of your violence

my father is strong and firm and knocks at the window in the way that punches a small, undeniable hole directly through my windpipe

there are a lot of things about this canal that the probe cannot understand

clearly evident in the shift in your spine as the door slams behind you

did i know at eight years old that footsteps would come to sound like fists to me? i always knew the tenor of arguments would send me over, but at this point i've lost count of the ways through which my environment stands to strangle me

how many voices eked out, slowly do you have to
miss before you'll hear me?

they might as well be constricting my limbs on the spot with the
ways they graze my hot, sweating flesh

does it count as purgatory if you're burning from the inside?

and so what have i to offer you beyond
a collection of cheap and naive sentiments
matted in the dust of ineloquence?
i miss you, is all, but not even you:
an image of you, but not even an image:

the ghost of a fantasy. yes, i am
haunted, haunted by your absence
your senseless existence your
orbit without mass or distance
and all the rest, in its restless fabrication.

all that remains are your artefacts
with i among them, not quite intact.

there's a passion in my veins
burning through me like liquid fire.
I rise to the top
so close I can taste the sweet taste of stars,
but then the taste turns bitter,
acidic,
and I am second best.

Two in the night isn't the right time
to be watched over by two eyes in silence
occasionally broken by a hushed voice
pack up sir, madam must be waiting sleepless.

Three in the night and he was right beside me
while the weary moon slanted to west
and dead insects lay on the floor
burned out by the joy of light.

Four in the night he was escorting me home
half a mile up the hill
when the stars were shedding light
fading with the dying night.

He died sometime after I left the island.

On sleepless nights he's there to see me off.
He could never be dead in my head.