• gaze

    the gaze pushes open these petals; the last layer hardened by years of not a true sun rising, you say, it’s true, and i wish it were true that i am willing to be broken in, even though i have been asked to believe instead—and wait; i am sure eons have passed and not a…

  • tainted

    you were the beginning, and you, are the full stop, in between was the longest sentence of me, don’t ask, why the gates are closed; sweetness tainted the night’s air, i hadn’t known anything good can be cloying, yet this skin bleeds death like it is life,

  • filth

    it’s born under the filth of every discarded skin, muck that clogs down your throat, limbs trapped under tar; submerged, ripped and pushed to rock; silence so complete, you are not sure you are all there; or really, is anything there at all, 

  • strike

    the blade’s turned inwards, point twisted through cavity; feel free to push further, repeatedly cut me out, do not undefine me; the bindings tighten; i have rearranged my dreams every night and have seen you in sharpness that made everything else, less real; petals fall, let them fall; strike those fisted whetstones into the shape…

  • make me

    don’t blend your brush over me; don’t pull those silvery dandelions over my lines; i cannot let these fingers uncurl from the knife’s edge; do not make me unmake me, it’s all that holds true; the edge is where my teeth smiles and lips spill love, maybe it’s true for you too, the way you…

  • electric

    starve these senses, thin out this skin, stretch out the hair on my head; let all the ends of my nerves shiver electric; veins like sickness bulging, crisscrossing over paleness, draw me out before it all fills in you, 

  • undivide

    why does these lies sound like truth; truth like lies, these whispers through the moonless window, tumbling dark and light cut through Reason; i can’t press the dividing line; spider webs my dreams, unspooling quicker than these three primary shades can take,

  • unscale

    your hands had caked mud and scales on my face, hair; i wonder why, i can’t tell even now if it’s to protect or to vilify; i am not sure why i let you; i spend nights unscaling skin with silver rings under moonshine, and wonder, why, why,

  • silk

    fold me like silk between your fingers; unfold me, and refold my knees pressed to my forehead, arms wrapped, unwrapped, fingers twined, untwined, straighten my folds, and fold again; as many times as you wish, pull me through your hands and snap me in the wind,

  • ignites

    there must be a price for the madness that pushes a girl’s hand to claw through earth, stick and hands, clawing clods of earth; repeatedly, repeatedly, taken, something taken—only the touch of deathless ignites the Night,