yes, you were all
straight-edges and knives weren't you

until the clouds dare drift
to colder skies
you melted right before

our eyes

the sunlight slaps you
so you retreat
and you cover up
the blood gets caught in
your white security blanket

and everything is okay

until you step back outside
the light draws attention to
the withered pale skin
and the watery pale wound
it doesn't stop stinging all day

jars of peanut butter not yet opened
and being the first to scrap the silken surface
with the knife

your favorite movie airing on television
and watching it again all thrilled because
some tv execs wanted to share it with the world

taking a t-shirt out of the dryer
and for a brief wonderful moment
it warms your cold morning skin

being alive

he holds a coffee cup in one hand
and a notebook in the other
it has a langston hughes quote on the cover
written in a midnight scrawl

when he paid, he smiled with all his teeth
and he had taken off his dark gloves for long enough
to reveal his calloused fingers
scarred guitar worn fingers

he drinks his coffee black and sits by the window
and Lord, the thought of him breaks me already

"speak quietly"

ah, but how would the people
living on the scraggly edge
of the mountain cliff
ever hear us if we did?

the flowers don’t grow as much
as they used to
during the yellow junes when her father
picked her up and spun the world
around them
so that it was all blurry lights
and a laugh
sort of like a freed bird

claws have been dragged through the dirt
and the field has been ravaged
and she doesn’t know why anyone bothers
sticking around it

she fruit she picks
from the curved, twisted tree
and the stout, shiny shrub
are not as sweet
like when the juice spilled over the boy’s wrist
as his thumb and forefinger pressed
the delicious ****** flesh against her lips

now it is bitter, and tough
and hard
if she finds one that is sweet
it is poisoned
and it burns her alive

the only land left is inside her
so she swallows all of the pink seeds
and waits for them
they bloom in her stomach
they ****** their roots into her heart

the flowers come back, in the end
unfurling above a scuffed brown sky

my mum's just told me about
all's the fairies that lives under our house
our house, millie, our house and that they'res
the ones who keeps making
all the smashings because they'res
clumsy and she says that the sticky
puddles are the fairy dew and that they'res
just bad at cleaning ups
and she says you gotsta leave them a silver
dollar and then they'll
sing a fairy song and
when mum and pa shout it's because they're
trying to scare off the fairies
because all the really do
is make a mess of things, millie
but sometimes this makes the fairies mad, millie
and they kick and my mum showed me
where the fairies punched her in the neck
and she also told me that when the police came last weekend
to put my father in the back of their car
it was because he had seen the fae
and he was to be a witness in their grand court
and my mother cried when she told me this

i'm not quite sure i believe in fairies anymore, millie

now the light bulbs don't turn on
and the silence overpowers even our dog
i am so, so small

you shrieked when the light bit your thumb
and begged me to kiss it like you knew i would
now the light bulbs don't turn on

i haven't left any bruises with my feet
because there is nothing left for me to kick in my sleep
i am so, so small

the city scrapes my skin like a plastic knife
and it winks at me while i pack your clothes away
now the light bulbs don't turn on

ambitions are a rather lofty thing, besides
i'm going to take a break for a while
i am so, so small

the sky and the ground once merged into one
our picnic blanket became the world
now the light bulbs don't turn on
i am so, so small

there is still blood
caked in the crevices between his fingers
when he stumbles back to the light
you turn on the water
(it'll burn his skin red but at least they'll be clean)
and you hold his hand
as you wash it away

same as the night last
its just part of the deal

he doesn’t look at you
but at something just to the left
at a water-color of the screams he cradled
before he snapped them
like wishbones

pretty eyes aren’t going to help someone who won't look at you