once I was yours, truly.
now hate is a blanket I wrap around myself,
but despite its comfort my blood still runs cold.
I’d rather shiver in its warmth
than ever let you touch me again.

it’s worthless rage –
a feeling I use to stitch old wounds.
it never stays together long enough to heal,
but it only unravels when I am alone.
in a room full of observers,
I choke down all the names I could call you.
I put my grief in a costume,
powder its nose and paint its eyelids,
until we're not wearing the same face.

my only memory is a light.
I think you tore it out of me.
I think I stopped breathing.
I think my lips turned blue.
I woke up the next morning,
and haven't felt a pulse since.

you threaded needles through me,
hung me up and played with the strings.
a marionette never moves unless manipulated;
a marionette never speaks for itself.
once I had no choice but to be yours, truly.

you speak in soft daggers.
I put on my best performance for you.
I bleed and bleed and bleed,
throwing towels on the floor beneath me.
love is an insatiable wound that can't be mended;
an affliction that will swallow me whole.
and though I am moribund,
I'm still apologizing for the mess.
I'm still thinking about the carpet.

I catch glimpses of you in spotted vision.
I hear your footsteps head towards the door.
I remembered to keep it unlocked this time.
the same love may never come twice,
but different love always leaves the same way.

I'm jealous of the sun,
for it gets to kiss your face every morning.
it gets to caress your cheeks,
and watch as your eyes flutter open,
a sight I long to see.

and I'm jealous of the moon,
for every night it gets to lull you to sleep.
as it cradles you in its soft light,
I wonder how it would be
if it were my arms around you instead.

and I'm not sure if this is potential.
you planted my hopes in love and let them grow.
this is a garden I was hesitant to tend to,
afraid it would wither once it had my attention.
but now the flowers are in bloom -
reaching for the sky,
the way I reach for you.

my body has taught me
everything I know about forgiveness.
it has pulled me through despair,
one foot in front of the other,
then closed the wounds left from my resistance.
it has turned the light in my eyes back on;
I can see the future again.

I must teach my body
everything I know about being forgiven.
I will not pick apart what was fixed
just to prove that it was broken.
I will not open old scars
just to prove that I was hurting.
I will not walk through hell again
just to prove that I was burning.

I will exist as I am now,
if only to prove that I can.

I've set old limbs atop a funeral pyre:
hands that reach towards the past,
and legs that carry me there,
wrapped in skin too tight to wear.
I mourn with flames in my hand,
but it's either that body or mine.

so I set alight my desire to live
and it fights to burn down
my mind's desire to **** me.
I think the procession will go on forever.
I've been wearing a veil for weeks now
and that body has not yet turned to ash,
but from the fire is beginning to rise
a person I will learn to love.

the last landmine is set off in my head.
I surrender to myself.
I beg myself to spare me.
I grovel at my own feet.

I ask my body,
how can you ever forgive me
for being so cruel?
there is silence.
then the wounds turn to scars.
from somewhere inside myself
I hear a voice say,
the same way I always have.

I am my reflection's marionette,
and it has turned me inside out.

I am bones and bones and bones.
my skin has collapsed in on itself:
a body like a star that's been crushed
underneath the weight of its weight.

my world is upside down.

all the blood has rushed to my head,
forcing the illness to vacate its home.
the malignant weakness pours into my limbs
until they are too heavy to lift without the strings.
cut me open and only shame comes out.

numbers begin where I last felt alive,
and end when I do.