when all the birds have broken their wings
i will cradle your blood in my palms like holy water.
it’s warm,
warmer than god’s voice ever was.

time does not speak to me.
it only gnaws.
i lie beneath the floorboards, fingernails black with rot,
scraping remnants of lace and dried sweetness
from the soft decay of forgotten girlhood.
those torn seams, those salt-laced dreams—
what is purity but a ghost in the mildew?

O hearken!
the lilies are shrieking again.
their tongues curl like burnt scripture.
and i—
forever entranced by the acacia with the broken branches—
watch it weep sap like blood from an open wound,
as if to mourn something
only the trees remember.

i have swallowed the nightingales,
pressed their hollowed bodies
to the roof of my mouth
and vowed to keep them safe.
put your hands within me
and you will know the breaking of their wings—
each bone snapping in rhythm
with the pulse beneath my skin.

Our God sees everything
but he blinks often.
how could anyone have a mother?

your ribcage—once cathedral, now ruin—
shatters under the thousand-eyed weight
of dead saviors.
their halos clang as they fall.
your conscience flickers like static,
blotted out by the black geometry
of the insatiable void.

cassiopeia screams into her chains
but the stars do not loosen.
the universe unfurls
like a paper body
set alight.

O hearken!
kneel for the Great Reprieve!
when all the birds have broken their wings—
may we bleed beautifully.
oh mercy you, oh mercy me.