cigarette smoke.

a benign heart

my therapist tells me that i have a problem processing traumatic events, even if they're repetitive; my head likes to put things in boxes, likes to take all the little things i can't understand in the moment and locks them in a chest in my

benign 

(kindly, gently)

heart.

i'm  separate like this, teeth gone red and smile gone green, do you think the sky is sapphire silver like this? eyes gone yellow like cat pupils thinning out i'm tired like this heart gone soft i'm lost, far away from my home away from home, 

hearth

(where molten metal collects on a fireplace)

gone soft. do you think i deserve to be lonely like this? longing for the afterthought of a smile; do you think that the lava spilling from my mouth is ed or purple, does it match my teeth? bloody like the inside of my cheeks — do you think i should be happy like this? organs rearranged to a tragedy i can not place, legs weathered away, erosion has taken my soul down a river and my bones rest like the fragments of a broken hourglass.

fact. you are far more likely to break your bones as a child. fact, i was the healthy one, i did not get sick physically but i would throw tantrums because the outside was too bright. do you think the sky is lonely up there? 

fact, my eyes change color in the light. 

fact, you have the same amount of cats as my bubby— the one that i love the on that scares me— do you think history is doomed for tragedy when my teeth are so yellow like this, chipped by a drum when i was young and traumatized and the religion wrapped its way in my head.

fact. the 'shem i think of when i think of one is kind enough to forgive me when i did not know there were choices. can you be holy if you have not looked at sin and thought you ought to pick virtue? there is no shadow without light, no light without shadow, you can not see colors if there are no color blind people. this is hungry 

(unsatisfied, craving)

work.

(hello 'shem are you lonely up there with all your angels?)

fact. there are no exceptions; do you think that its —

fact. SHEKET in everit translates to quiet please. 

SHEKET SHEKET SHEKET SHEKET do you think the world will go quiet if i say it loud enough? 

 S H E K E T B V A K A S H A . 

..(hey!)