I sustain a mirrored courage of the earth
staggering posed like two humans who saw
the world in each others eyes for only a few seconds
the contagious feeling bleeds throughout my consciousness
and then leaves at the tipping of the hour
grunting and ashamed
we are each others burden
each others disaster

I try to lift my arms in the air with broken shoulders
while a melting metal falls on the sides of my neck
my collar bone twists while I carefully hold my steady breathing
so that my rib cage does not explode
my eyes closed shut
the bones in my fingers holding on for dear life
veins blue like the sea of our dreams
I feel every ounce of blood tremble in my chest
I feel every cell in my body fight for my survival
I feel my immunity perish
A shriek comes up my pit from the core of my small body
it was as if every heart that had ever beat stopped in sequence
as if the world had found its place in nothingness
and was drowning in silence

I fall
onto a house made out of black brick
empty and creative with its own darkness
its striking absence of light
its livid and ebony coal rubbing against me
welcoming me to the safety of the place made for those
who were no longer able to hold on
shadowy and starless with its own language of mute
its strain and and distressed fever

the thick air has become my companion
the hard icy floor, and the raven walls
the windows are mute and let in no salvation
to whatever beauty may be left throbbing on the outside

I have become a slave to my own pain
I begin to rub my body against it
I let the poison drip delicately like art from my tongue
I let it run down my inner arms
wrists
and then slowly off my fingertips
onto my stomach
and then lower
I churn

I am expressionless
the satisfaction of finally spreading my body
of finally learning how to adorn these black waters
to drink the toxins, alone
makes me shiver
a smirk manages to escape my cracked lips
my broken cheeks
my pale and black eyes

In the corner I sit naked and shudder
something dark and slippery falling off the ends of my hair
I rub the fluid and examine it in between my fingers

I bare no protection for it is not needed
I am no longer afraid
those who strangle now fear me
rancid
******
skulls roll off my spine and line themselves perfectly like little school boys

screams echo from my pores
I have no recollection of what was of me before I came here at first
I am only content to have found this haven

but after sometime  I grow feverish
repeatedly I find myself in alabaster boredom
I want to escape

I want to feel warmth other than mine
something light
like the painters brush upon his canvas
like a morning wave upon sand that sinks beneath your feet like flour
like two little girls playing with each others hair
like the petite smile a lover tries to hide
like the innocence I once had

but the windows of my world are shut
and this place is placid and hallow - numbing

I tear my skin open with as little as a flinch
break my bone
and sharpen it against the rough walls surrounding me
my blood seeps into the floor like venom
scattering in thin lines
suddenly my body becomes more connected with this world
with this tyranny

but I refuse to stop

everything engulfs me
there is no whispering
there is no talking
but I hear something telling me that it loves me
begging me not to leave
humming in what feels like a beautiful witches tongue

I stop
and remember the nights I spent here
how delightfully lonely and mysterious they were
how my heart had been injected with their air and finally became paralyzed
how hungry I was for more of the thickness and the monstrosities
how it had taken me so much strength to finally give up
to finally leave, come here and accept that this is my fate
far away from any source of light where my body felt heavy and torpid
remote and listless there had been nothing to worry about because
I had become a dead creature
far from mortal

but then I remember warmth
and continue to file my bone that has been made
as hard as diamond by pain and coldness

I spear into the walls and break them
spread my  bat wings
and fly away from that world

an afterglow behind me
while the universe sings its traditional song of the hearts revival