My blood is not red anymore
It is not even rufous
It is achromatic
I’ve seen it go to a watery grave
with moonshine

It drowned
for a foolish fluid  
one so dimwitted
it forgot the word “No”
could be spoken
to bring their negligent ears
into *******

(And not me)

My blood rushed out
In it’s gloom
I wanted to emulate it
and exit my body
just as they entered

What a theft
What a “five-finger discount”
Literally

It was a perfect portrait
A gun kissing the crown of my head
and my indifference
towards the money in the cash register
that I called my soul-case
If I’d even had any left

My lips moldered shut
They don’t like parting anymore
Two buds charred sorely
as a pen
that speaks only in black ink


I searched every crevice of that washroom
for a noose
I found my reflection
and thought that close enough

So there I hovered
hung up on my mirror image
suspended by two claws
honed with dejection

My eyes slammed taut  
My pulse ******* bones in my face
and gnawing itself
with prowling fluorescents

I grazed the scuffs on my thighs
I hadn’t put there
for once

Then I remembered the nausea  
snarled up in their cheeks
Their words like spiders
I don’t know where they’ve gone
and I don’t want to

“Is it that time of the month?’
said the shorter, more truculent boy
and he sniggered

I stood submerged
in hard edged a laugh
that liked to wrench my ears
and make rounds
on nights hot and heavy
with languor

and perhaps,
had I not been so small
or weak of muscle
had I worn a different dress
or forgotten to coat my lashes
had I sipped on tea
instead of *****
I could’ve flagrantly pushed them away
Darted not with my eyes,
but my legs
I could’ve screamed “Get off me you scumbags!”
until my throat shriveled up
into a dried cranberry

But I didn’t

Instead I’m screaming
on a piece of paper

Because the worst that happens here
is a paper cut.