hold at your risk; it's such thin skin —
delicate until it's not —
until beneath each layer,
gracelessly peeled back
isn't a doe-eyed girl
but chaos,
coming undone at the seams of a cold, pewter dress.

stare at your risk,
until what stares back isn't a doe-eyed girl
but lashes made of papercuts;
yet, wounds don't heal in silhouetted figures —
all barefoot on the ground where peonies fall.
all cold and bruising skin where the daylight hits.

wounds don't heal  in silhouetted figures
and the quiet morning cliché is that
it's the softest thing that leaves you hurting the most

lately, these poems are becoming mere abstractions
but the wounds, they remain tender
and the chaos still tries to find its way
outside this skin.
after all,
delicate things aren't meant to hold
this much obscure aching,
these much fragile bones.

lately, these poems are becoming mere abstractions
but the wounds still remain tender
under this cruel, pewter dress.

and they are tender, until they're not.
they are delicate, until they're not.


this is soft. until it's not.

The world is an archery range and
Artemis' throat is a target practice.

What is this pale and moon-drenched skin
but a carcass to howling wolves —
their sorrows grow hand and grab her by the neck.

I always told myself to lie still
throughout the attack —
it'll be over before you know it,
but my lips are wounded from biting down a scream
and a carcass still weeps
long after it's dead
and my lung still bleeds
long after it's dry — lie still, my love,
because what if the calm trembles in a storm
and what if the storm brews in the calm.
Lie still, I say
but my legs weren't made to be a hunted prey's.
Lie still, I say
but my hands weren't meant
to carry the moon and all the sadness
she was ever told.

Lie still.
No, it's not only Atlas who breaks.
The world still is an archery range.

And tonight, Artemis takes her last arrow;
perch her carcass on the grieving moon —
a carcass, regardless, to all howling wolves.

a carcass — motionless;
a carcass
lies still.

And all of Delos mourns.

tw

i. october
i am a house burning down
and if i cannot make it out of this body,
at least, let me knit lilacs on my skin
where my wounds are in their softest —
where they hurt the most.

it is easy to look at a girl
and call her trembling poetry.
it is easy to look at a girl
and not see an arsonist.
it is easy to read a poem
and not see the disconnect.

ii. november
i am a boneyard of butterflies —
and these roads know too well the way
a grass blade wounds my feet.

i remember their faint way of hurting —
oh how it had dwindled into normalcy.
and yet maybe when you play numb long enough,
everything slowly does.

iii. december
i remember reading epitaphs as a kid;
it is eighteen years too late
for a half-meant apology
and soon enough,
when the woodsmoke lifts, you'll see
wisterias tying the noose,
swinging lovingly from these corpse-cold fingers.

i remember writing epitaphs.
each word — a love child my tombstone never knew.

iv. january
say my farewells to summer, i cannot wait.
soon, someone will walk me slowly to a river —
all pressed tux and a lace wedding dress
and hold my head down,
gently, softly,
until each tiny breath has escaped
this mad house.
this boneyard.
this mouth.

i do.

i do.

i do.

fin.