i smell the sulfur in my blood

as it drips from my fingernails

onto the ground -

iron returning to iron.  

sometimes i think i see

macroscopically

because faces aren’t faces

they’re eyes staring back at me.

i can’t bring myself to look

so i stare at the cracks of their hands -

broken palms moving back and forth

to words i don’t understand.  

i see the sky and think of the sea

and wonder if the clouds taste of salt -

but there’s a growing buzz

that sounds like vocal chords being

rubbed against one another

like the shriek of a violin,

so i cast my gaze to my own flesh.  

it is beige and soft and strange

and i just want to rip it off

and expand past the atmosphere -

leaving behind calcium and phosphorous.  

instead i continue to bite away at myself

and rain red.