tw

sorry, i am running out of ribs to break
and this sorrow has grown stems and branches;
soon, they will dig their way in,
handing me flowers for a funeral.

some nights, it is a switchblade
digging deeper into my wounds —
other nights, it is an act of kindness.

some nights, my lips refuse to read aloud
the epitaphs carved in my headboard.
other nights, i recite them like poems
worth laying at a forest's doorstep —
in a worn-out dress and
with mud in my skin.
from the dark,
i cannot tell whether the offering
is this poem or me.

sorry, i am running out of ribs to break
and this sorrow has grown roots
in the gaps where all my bones used to rest —
and there is no way out of these woods
when your heart has long hanged itself —
when your feet are sinking quicker
than they move.

and soon, you'll find that the butterflies in my stomach
had been nipping on these funeral flowers —
nipping for so long on my flesh —
inside out.

sorry, i am running out of ribs to break
and this chest has become a wide-open mass graveyard.

here, their weary bodies lie —
the girls made of blackened bones and dystopia.
the girls who don't survive themselves.
here, their weary bodies lie.

here — where my weary body lies.