my skin is made of dystopian days knitted together
until they resemble the dying seconds of my worst light

i am naked as a gaunt body under an indigo sunset — its weak light beams
feel like the browning stems of a *****
and my wrist is the soil, the aftermath of a war —
has it ended?
has the ground stopped rotting?
has my body?

i hope it doesn't get worse than this.

my skin is a piece of a brick wall
inside an abandoned church, it echoes
a kind of desperation, a kind of compulsion:
what am i doing?
what am i doing?
what am i doing?
i am a widow that prays to gods who are long gone,
in a church that no one visits anymore.

my skin is a map of prayers in a dead language
and there is no new word for the kind of mourning
the kind that silence can barely contain
without breaking into a scream.

it has always been loaded; i have always been loaded
in my fragile stillness, in my best and worst lights.
i hope i don't get worse than this.