those slender fingers ache
with frost touched tips
when hands join not
and severance of limb
not of your own body
comes away like snow
falling from the sky
so naturally but so coldly

body, what aches in you?
from dismantling joints
to decaying flesh
the rot only I can see

mind, what plagues you?
from late night thoughts
to the words of others
as I try to escape it

body, what are you?
to deny the mind
and wreck havoc on identity
to break me again

mind, what say you?
follow into darkness
and float ways away now
to a better place for us

I sit alone on the floor,
the light blinks in and out.
...or perhaps it is my eyes?
that I cast now over leftwards
to look at the doorway.
Empty, as it always is,
or is now? as it should be.

I feel as though I am floating,
no, I am grounded now.
Chained here to the floor.
My body lays like bones in the ground,
unmoving and crushed by dirt.
heavy and cloying, the smell of earth.
worms dig under my skin,
wriggling parasites in my skull.

Am I decaying? like I once wished.
my thoughts like rot, what else...
but to deteriorate into darkness.
My body lays on the floor,
a useless cadaver as it always was.
I am strung to it by some means,
my ghost lingering on the dead.
Have I not moved on yet?

one that is not my own
one a skin I no longer fit
one all my own but older
one new and fresh faced
one that no one ever knows
a list so long I could never find me
a list of them extending beyond all

tired eyes, those long nights
drinking mint tea like alcohol
whispering to myself in a soft drawl
as the frigid september air bites

my lids grow heavy as hours pass
staring at my screen for answers
words jump around like dancers
my vision becomes milky glass

as I lift my head to the dawn
my hands still across the keys
and I can finally feel at ease
now the night shadows are gone