Taken, this only route to the back of something blacker.
I left my fingernails to protest in the floorboard,
stuck, sticking still
white headstones for things I cannot remember.
Pale ghosts of my
tenacity
before it strode cross the threshold into a gentle night.

I piled like garbage in the corner,
an anthill
phenomenally empty.
This, my house of skin,
ice dispensers and salt,
brewing something foul,
I inflate, churning charcoal

in the corner,
out the door,
heaving hell.