Oh how a rotted home aches.
Floorboards agonize,
their faces betray
a life's frozen mirth.

A shattered window,
caked in cobweb
calls to her daughter in the wind.

Footprints erased by dust.
Photographs wilted and grey.
Oh how a rotted home aches.

Rotten smell.
Stale water.
In this well –
a monster.

Twisted horns,
horrid maw –
a wild beast!
You would know...

You entrapped it in there,
but to leave, don't you dare.

It is stuck
in the dark –
cannot run
nor attack.

The beast calls
from the pit –
you can hear
it weep.

You entrapped it in there...
Its sad cries, you must bear.

the bad you gave me
clears away from my system
you no longer live in the depts of my being
i no longer give you the authority

the rotten you gave me
disappears so easily
you were no solid
i now see that clearly

If I were like air then I'd breathe you.
As I sit in the the bowl and observe.
I'd never succeed in the quest that I'm freed.
I'll rot though, if I had the nerve.

Just take me and pick as I ripen.
Bite me, as nectar escapes to your chin.
Enraptured by spell to entice you again.
And feast on sweet secrets within.

But leave me and pass with your ignorance.
Overlooked as I signal my true end of days.
For I will repay you with sorrow.
As my beauty fades, waving farewell decays.

I could stare at myself in the  mirror for hours.

It starts in my extremities.
a chill creeps its way into my abdomen,
and cements my joints.

The bacteria residing in my intestines
dine on my organs for supper,
they blow up my stomach until I'm
pregnant with air, my non-existent baby
forcing thick liquid out every orifice.

It tickles,
when the flies visit my rotted skin.
Their steps light and playful,
turn sinister, and force their way into my
open mouth to lay their eggs.
I wait, as the larvae devour
my brain tissue.

When I have nothing left to give,
I'll pull down my lower eyelid
and let the maggots slide out.

Feast or famine.
The dry summer or monsoon season.

It’s not as though he had
murdered me.

That would be easier to
prove. There would be

no hiding
the blood of it.

And how I did bleed—
years later,

red all over it.
Improper.

Fuel for the fire.
Combustible.

But nothing trembles
as I weigh the being

of my existence against
what stoppage.

Order or chaos.
Black or white.

What has been spoilt
rotten can never be

golden. These are
the questions I ask myself:

Am I loved? Do I
love? Can I love?

While there is the story
he tells himself, reassuringly:

It was just ***.
It was just ***.