Ever since I was a child,
I counted all the ways we could die—
falling through ice, an earthquake,
Even the weather seems to panic.
Somewhere in the world, right now,
A fish is struggling to get by.
But it dies by the hand of a man.
who thinks death is a pastime.
We die small deaths every time—
Like scissors in hair, shedding of skin
when I knew all the ways he would leave
Once, just once in my life,
I want to feel delicate.
Not like the hole in the drywall.
shaped like a fist.
Once, I want to shred the list.
that contains all the ways we could miss
Just once, I do not want to be sharp.
like a cutting knife, like a blade
Even in death, there is rebirth—
flies, mites, beetles,
feeding on someone’s deathbed.
From just one conversation,
I could smell the rot—
the body left untouched for a month,
Is it wrong to say?
That ever since I was a child
I lived with ghosts in my house.
And I was never soft in my life.
just bones and flesh
with a brain filled with living death.