The flowers blooming in Antarctica
Will be on our graves
We have loved the earth
The way most men love women
Not much at all
Not willing to listen or change
We **** her
With greed
For our short satisfaction

Tell me
Please
You find something divine
In my familiarity
As I find peace
In yours

I’m just a girl
I love her
I love moving my body
I love music
No one
Can care for me
Like myself

I saw myself in a old photo today
I don’t have that outfit anymore
I remember the piece of tissue
Stuck to my shoe from the toilet water
The last thing I remember tasting
Was black, and mild, and sober
I smoked it on the cold ground
In the alley behind the bar
That seemed the safest place
I took my clothes off when I got home
Bagged them twice
Placed them in the garage bin
I sat under the scalding shower water
Praying it would burn you out of me
Feeling the storm inside
Wanting lightning to come down
Strike you from me
Wishing I had the strength
To scrub you off me
Knowing naked would never be the same
A layer of comfort peeled away

I saw myself in a photo today
The day you made me sick
Remembering laying lifeless
In my bed
Unable to move, sweating
The fever did not cleanse me
You readied me
For trials
I did not know I would endure
You weakened me
For burdens
I was not meant to bear

It was a week before he came
Separate from you
Soon to be the same
In my fevered thoughts
I thought my shining knight
Was here to comfort me
He drew his sword
Stabbing the wound you opened
His armor
Protected only him
Who will pull the sword
From the stone
I am too weak

Picture me now
Wearing this scar
I waited for it to fade
To heal

Grief is my religion
And oh, how earnestly I worship

Cosmic dust
Is coming together again
Arranging
Bones
Skin
Body
I write of her
With cold hands
Perhaps these cells
Have been someone else
Perhaps another body
Another mind
One that called out
Into the beyond
Asking if they were alone
Will I answer their question
Or simply repeat it
Let it linger in the cosmos
Suspended
Between heaven
And earth

If I told you
I wanted to rip my skin off
I don’t know
How you would look at me
I can be naked
Not vulnerable
Know that when I say this
I have already
Been tearing myself into little pieces
It seems I have been trying
To get the words out
For a thousand years
My throat is full
Of all the things I did not say before
I sit here at the bottom
Of a hundred mountains
I will never climb
A hundred birds come and tell me
Of the beauty on the other side
I ache for something I will never see
I am too tired for the journey
My feet too weary for the path
My bones will not hollow themselves out
I am still empty
What a weight it is