i. (2010)

there are eighteen scars in a row above your wrist
pallid and shameful and white as bones and you’ve
counted them
(still do)
under the sheets with your lips moving around whispers

they remind you of empty hallways and
the cacophony of your steps on blue linoleum
and that you are alive the way your breath in pale clouds does
on especially cold days


ii. (2011)

sometimes you dream of colours
(soft and animate and comforting) but
there is only red against the ivory
of your wrist
you’ve read the stories, you know
about the wolves and what happens to girls in red

there are eighteen scars in a row
and you breathe
and you bleed
and you keep counting

iii. (2012)

you don’t sleep much anymore
you fill your nights with the synthetic emotion
of words and films instead and
bury yourself in their comfort
their fabricated sadness

a substitute for everything you should have felt
there is an emtpiness inside of you, a vast
pale space inside your chest
your breath can’t fill

iiii. (2013)**

you tell people you’re mending
not even you know what that means
sometimes you trace them
(quietly
and with closed eyes)

and there is only the white of your skin
and the press of your fingertips
and you breathe
and your blood keeps pumping