I wonder about summer days
and screaming until my voice is hoarse;
of time that runs like oil
and gets between my fingers,
of how you hate the taste of olives.

It's April.
It's living again, breathing something other than car fumes
and I'm sat breathing smoke again,
hand dangling out of my bedroom window.

I stare at green.
I make jokes.
I do the things.

But there's a hollowness.
A warning of sticky, forever days that
cling to the surface of my skin;
bloom like spring in my lungs and starve me of oxygen
with an aggressive, loving life to them.

yes.
it hurt.
it all hurts.

i want to forgive you.

I watch your breaths;
slow and even
and I love you so much in this moment
I'm glad you're asleep
not to witness me
as I fall apart in your unconscious hands.

how can I change what I am,
what the tangle of my genes read
and the sharp corners of my face.
how can I dilute myself to a soft shade of salmon sky
and smell as sweet as summer's sunset.

I keep chipping away at the parts of myself,
hoping to find some sparkle of gold,
but I just become less and less and less

My brother came up to collect our mother’s ashes.
At the same time, he dropped off her old vacuum cleaner.
I don’t know why exactly.
I hadn’t asked for it and didn’t need it;
I guess it would have been a waste to just get rid of it.
The thing is, 
it hadn’t been emptied, 
and for some reason that 
broke me 
all over again.

That grimy little time capsule.
That cyclone technology urn.
Contents:
Dust of a home you can never go back to;
Fur of a cat now settled with a new owner;
Dead cells of a dead woman.

Remains.

i want someone to feel my body, to feel its heat and swim in it.
i want someone to taste the pale milk of my skin and announce its sweetness.
i want someone to trace the soft curves of my hips mindlessly, with a gentle hand.
i want someone to look me in my eyes and keep my gaze, hoping neither of us glance away.

I lie on the forest floor
with moss beneath,
delaying my sinking into the dirt.
Water beads on my skin,
capturing the trees and the green in its reflection.
Each breath feels easier than the last,
the ground guides my lungs with its own rising and falling.
Flowers creep along my limbs,
shy at first,
then slowly, they bud and bloom,
tickle the inside of my ear.
They whisper a song,
one whose melody is almost familiar,
and I feel myself erase.
My body breaks down, gives back to the wood,
and there's a certain relief in it,
as I take to the less physical world.
My bones bleach in the sunlight that slips through the leaves of the trees, my brethren.

No one will find my decaying form,
the remnants of a meaningless existence,
instead they'll find a small patch of red and blue and yellow,
of plants they can't quite name,
of petals that are silk to the touch.

In my last moments, I smile.

I've been holding my breath
since the day that you left
and I haven't exhaled
                                     since
                                                .