My veins are drawn taut
Fishing line beneath my skin
I extend outwards.

that's just the way the body goes i guess
wanna mould my hands around his shoulders
through t-shirt and pyjama pants
wonder what the mirror shows him

that perfect mouth is smiling
do i wanna be him or ingest him
i wish that i could memorise it
wanna put my mouth around the reflection

kiss him everywhere until he sees red
hold his perfect imperfect face and
taste myself on his breath
take his arms or be held in them
i wanna feel and i wanna know
i guess that's just the way the body goes

it's highschool recess and my best friend and i watch the seventh-graders
from our perch as 'older boys' with minimum-wage jobs and harder homework. one is handing around a gleaming can of monster energy like the blood of christ himself and everyone wants some. they treat the factory-issue can with such tender care, flushed fingertips on cold metal.

"why are they so excited about a monster?" i ask.

("what does it taste like?" a wide-eyed friend's younger brother asks.)

"because it's novel. it's their first taste of freedom." my friend says, and
then suddenly i remember all the times we've done the same with our friends.  

first, in an airport because me and my shaking hands couldn't finish it ourselves. outside school, warm from the flesh of someone's school bag all day. under the table and the teacher's nose because i stayed up too late, comuning with other friends in the blue dark. no matter who buys it's always for all of us.  

("have a sip"-"i don't like this one"-"the juice one is my favourite")

like maybe the 58g of sugar and 600mL of caffeine is okay if it's split between us. like the sharing of spit is holy. i look out at the small crowd of seventh graders and realise they are just beginning to learn:

what is communion if not half backwash?
what is holier than ingesting your friends?
what is holier than killing your hearts together?

i can feel the worms
as they wiggle under my skull.

i dig them out with tweezers,
throwing them in a bowl.

but the more i dig,
the more there are

no matter where i go,
no matter how far.

my brain turns to mush
as the days go by

my innards begin to rot
and my corpse liquifies.

what began as concern
slips into terror.

but i promise,
i never meant to scare her.

Rotting means having your brain
collapse in on itself in a grey gooey heap.
It means your eyes
falling apart and your tongue swelling up
and bursting
under the weight of a thousand maggots.
It's cutting your stomach into ribbons
and letting it shrivel into nothing.
It's letting your bones wither and crack
and your hair fall out
and it means curling up into a
dry
dusty
gooey
broken
slimy
oozing
ball.
I think I'm rotting.
Please help me.
Please help me,
I'm rotting.

This body is not mine,
Though I still see through it's eyes
An image in my mind,
But this likeness I do not find
Denial, rejection; typically a body's traits,
Somehow here in my soul, felt towards this flesh that frustrates
Upon a mirror I gaze,
I see a stranger's face
Am I a ghost that haunts here?
The previous Will erased?
Am I attached to a past,
That this body never had?

i think i might have a mole.

my teeth are dug out of their rows.
my tongue is pulled out at the root.

my nails are shriveled up thorns,
my wrists wilted bouquets of bones.

my ribs metal jaws which enclosed
something that bit off its foot.

my skull’s overturned,
seeds spilling out of the neck.

what is a corpse but a flower bed?