I am a lost cause and they’re still waiting to grow old
if you heard me say that you’d be disgusted but
you’d say it right back
to you I am a flower on a broken stem it’s hard
to miss the grief in your eyes no matter how many times
I tell you I’m not dead
I can hear them in the other room their voices
tucked behind mourning veils
it’s like they’re circled around some abandoned chrysalis
like she quit while she’s ahead and
if lives were prophecies hers was not fulfilled
(oh isn’t she
isn’t she empty)
they have pictures of the time she raised butterflies
they still have the empty jar and she stopped missing their wings
a long time ago
they told me I died and I swallowed dirt to prove them wrong
(oh isn’t she
empty)
I cut myself open expecting a desert
and instead I found a waterfall