pale sickness
you're white as a sheet

draining illness
your clammy white skin
rots

deathly light
the diseased white sun will bleach your bones
after the doves pick them clean

sickly white
your cracked teeth clatter out of your skull
dominos in a dead white jar


trembling hands the color of spoiling milk
carefully cradle an almost translucent infant
mother and child
both far too weak to feed

the only thing that grows here is decay
white mold thrives on your hoarded white bread
while outside the safety of the white picket fence
there is not a single soul who does not
recognize the white of an unburied skeleton
under a full moon

Let me tell you a bedtime story. It goes
Once upon a time there was a girl born for void filling purposes, She cried till they told her to stop and she never cried again.
She learned everything perfectly and extremely well.
Then her best friend died.
Then her brother killed himself.
She decided to get high. and lost her drive but she didn't care and said all the swears. She ***** and lies but she always listened and never cried.
Her womanly emotions would not get the best of her. Instead she stuffed them into a shoe box that she hid behind all the skeletons and needles she keeps in the closets.
The Girl was born to fill a void.
Used as a vault for all the faults of those around her.
She was meant to fill a void.
But then
her best friend shot herself in the head while she watched.
then she found her brother dead.
And she lost her drive.
The girl is older now.
She still has no drive, but she has this void that needs to be filled. and tears in her eyes.

Take my heart
Cardium carpal
Impossible to hold in both hands
In every glorious piece
Valve, ventricle, artery
Pulsing, pulsing — but no blood
Not pink, not red but grey,
Grey matter, but no matter

Take care not to lack a hole by
Ebon ivory of your skeletal hands,
Pulsing, pulsing — but no blood
Only bone grasping endocrine glands
Blood eagled atrium across your palms
Venae cavae hollowed hands.

Strange Skeleton Knight
Why do you fight?

You're so fragile
Yet you take on my burdens without being asked
Why must you be so eager to die on my behalf?

Don't you deserve to live too?

Mr Skeleton Knight
Why don’t you cry?

You never make a sound
Yet your sadness echoes deafeningly
Do your bones not feel cold out in the dark?
Does not being able to shed tears make you unable to release your sadness?

Can I cry on your behalf?

Sir Skeleton Knight
What did you do with your heart?

Did you tear it out to stop yourself from feeling?
Did you give it away along with the rest of yourself?
Even someone without flesh and organs shouldn't look so empty inside
Why can't you get your heart back?

Can I give you mine instead?

Noble Skeleton Knight
Do you like the grave I've dug you?

I'm glad that you haven't buried yourself yet
But I'm sure you don't feel the same way
Then why don’t you let your soul rest?
Wouldn't the warm dirt hug you more than anyone else has?

I don’t think I can help you anymore.

Beloved Skeleton Knight
I’ve killed myself

I hope you don't think that your existence was a tragedy
Though in the end I never managed to make you feel alive even once
I’ve told them to bury me next to your grave
Promise me that you'll stay at my side
Atleast now we can be cold and empty together.

Why do you still look so sad?

I take care of It every day
moving  It around the house
and making It sit still in silly poses.
In the morning I clean the skull
with a mop
shining and shining.
I carry It from the bedroom
to the library
to the kitchen
and then I let It in the living room with all the other guests:
A lazy cat bathing in the sunbeams.
The ghost of a dog who barks at the passing times.
A renegade bird who just chirps to let know the world that there is injustices.
I think that they have long chats when I’m not there
working trying to fit.
I couldn’t say,
after all I can’t speak the language of the gone.
If I remember
remember to have lunch,
I would like to invite It to site across the table
I don’t like to eat alone
the silence tends to ferment the thoughts
and I prefer to accompany my meals with water
It’s better for the body.
In the afternoons I would sit with them in the living room
to share the coffee and some of my worries.
They listen
and that’s the only thing I would ever ask from them.
In the night when I remember
remember to sleep
I took It to the bedroom
and carefully laid down the fragile bones.
I use cotton sheets to cover It.
I also laid there,
cautious to not disturb It,
I make myself small to fit between the ribs,
and there I would wonder
how the next day it’s going to be
and when was the last time that I lived
with someone who doesn’t make me carry them around.