My breathing's wrong.
This pattern inside me
isn't my rhythm.
You've got all the control
& I'm programmed to rise & fall
just from a single phrase of yours
and
I wish I could even try
to get this heart to knock on rib doors
build some courage up
to
whisper truths between the
sliver membranes so I can
try & balance out the breathing
and get a grip on reality
cause I'm almost outta that conscious-land
& I don't know
this man
he keeps bringing me to hell & heaven...
then back
with just his text.

(c) 2014

It was late, of course, and the glow of the light
illuminated the dark shadows in the corner of my room.

Sitting with our limbs entwined
sipping on our second glass of wine,
we were discussing in our usual tired eye manner.
I watched as you pensively considered reincarnation.

“Maybe a blue jay or a lazy panda”, you said laughing
“or rather a busy otter or a black lab”.

I got quiet as I contemplated this idea.
Not sure whether I’d want to come back as an animal
or even another living thing.

While you raised your glass to your lips
I raised the question to myself and began to wonder
what it would be like to return as one of your ribs.

To be with you all the time,
perched quietly beneath the soft weight of your breast,
riding along under the soft fabric of your flannel shirts.

Maybe I’d return as your favourite rib,
if you even bothered to count,
which is what I did when you fell asleep that night.

The bare of your chest rising and falling,
gently firming and unfirming the shape of your cage,
hearing the slow of your breath as you relaxed.

My legs grazed the length of yours,
my fingers doing that crazy numbering thing
choosing which ribs I would like to perch
my reincarnated self between.

Poetry’s carved into her flesh,
intertwined with her ribs
and parasitic on her brain, the softest ***** now that her thrashing chest hardened.

It’s the thorn of a plastic rose, jabbing her distinct print, and
analogies crawling down to her jaw line,
sprawling at individual forks of two points; it was always only two.

Melodic qualities burgled her mind to
exist in ubiquity throughout her pores
and soiled strands of hair pinched with a tie ten centimeters from the root.

Poetry, disobedient and sovereign,
lived to spell a testimony
individual to her since no one breathed her air.

Watch this
You mumbled deep in slumber
Took your hand
Unzipped the skin just beneath
Your occupying ribs,
Slipped four fingers behind the walls
Of your cage (what does it hold
Does it protect or alienify?)
And wiggled them between the bars
Look at what I can do
I almost have it all figured out
If you tried
So would you

My heart screams out.
You've been cutting it ever since you smashed your love to pieces while it was still intertwined with my own.
I'm drowning in lost love.
I'm aching for you but you just keep kicking me in the ribs.
I love you.
I hate you.
I hate how I love you.

he approached me as the sky streaked pink
limping with tears streaming down his gaunt cheeks
he whispered to me under heavy breaths and groans
"someone cracked my ribs while I was asleep.
I woke up this morning only to find them broken
and marked with a delicate design of pain.
I shriveled and gasped and could not breathe
and I finally understand what you mean
when you speak of your depression."

she wanted to be skinny.

     she wanted to ignore the skin on her body
     until it hung loosely off her skeleton
     like a wrinkled shirt on a hanger
     that needed ironing.

she wanted to be a stick
so that she could fit through the
spaces in the dark of trees
and understand how they fed off of
themselves.

     she wanted to know what it was like
     to have knives instead of collarbones,
     carving off the little chunks of fat,
     and throwing them to the side, letting the
     festering rats devour the residue of
     fourteen years of life.

she wanted to have hips that served as
mountains, looking like the alps,
with climbers covered in furs throwing hooks
over the niches in her body.

     she wanted a ribcage that would hold
     even the mightiest bird, without letting
     a single feather breach her defenses,
     never letting a ferocious caw escape her,

because she wanted to be thin.