I’m scratching my cheekbones
Gripping at cavities
And white noise

I just wanted to fill my lungs
With corrosive apathy
And feel my ribs shatter free

I spoke in nervous tones
On the day of your death
And found myself lacking all sensory depth

Some time next Spring
All the flowers eroded
And I couldn’t care less

I looked at my reflection and saw everything I hated
In the form of where you used to stand
And what was now left in its place

Gaunt and bitter
I adorned your absence
Like a crown
Hollow as my chest

Wilt my lungs
I’ll breathe in bitter bloom
And fill my chest with concrete tombs

At twenty one I exhaled tar
And covered my birthday cake

Ribs for the skyline
This city built a church round my heart
Before some gutter punks spray painted the side of the stained glass
With the suicide rates of middle-class citizens

Nothing has been the same since

When I was young
I was raised on Disney
And taught that my bones were living things

At thirteen years old
I nestled a heart within the clouds and smoke of my chest
It suffocated to death

I’ve never broken a bone
But I’ve trailed plenty of marrow

Apart in my lust
I separate
Disconnect
Break

There’s an infinite space where these fingers once entwined
I rise above my own flesh just to watch it die

Languorous apathy
I slept as death whispered
Through the murk of my self-inflicted
Desolation
Regressing until my heart withered from its bones

Autumn reminds me of black leaves and dead lips
adolescence left to die on empty swing sets

I remember
this archway
all too well.

When I was young
the concept of time
was a distant thing.

Do you remember
waiting,
every sunrise,
in this archway?

I was late
(more often than not)
but you never failed
to find
and kiss me
good morning.

I’m sorry
for everything.