body work

vii: myself, painted as a thunderstorm painted as a graveyard

**tw's: death, hospital mention, sh implied**

the summer when both my
mind & muscle break down
is marked out by glorious thunderstorms. scattered
throughout the weeks.
conceived in the latter hours of
the eves—

humid air & darkened skies, &
birds nesting under the eaves—
the windows are left wide open —
i almost feel fine breathing in
wet earth: the scent heady & everywhere. i almost feel fine when fevered body meets cool air.

it happened today & yesterday. it's the only thing that will promise me the morrow.

my heart mirrors the thunderclaps,
my eyes, the heavy monsoon — i
disrupt & erupt & interrupt time —
all whilst lying in this low-lit
hospital room. i too, rip myself apart with rage

at how the promise of a good thing turns dangerous all at once. or is that what makes it good?

i have no-one to ask. i was promised so much, i make do with that.

i use my fingers as rosary beads, pulling out the nails with each devotion. i

keep wet leaves hidden in the nail beds,
where i join the root,
until the next growth. this is my favourite home.

the teeth drip out, one by one. i arrange them in line, my little tombstones, my

pelvic bone stutters, it always has too much to say. there is no-one to tell. i don't think god could

recognise my face, i don't think i would want him to. this is some sort of blessing, to disappear from creation itself & not be missed
by friend or foe
to disappear into the cracks that nobody need close.

this is fun, is it not? to languish for years to amount to the same rot

as under myself? i use the fingernails to etch on epitaphs on enamel:

loyalty: we lost too soon, o embodiment of love;
safety: never departed from our god above;
childhood: a stranger to most, disguised as a friend
loneliness: a steadfast companion, its spirit kept.

i etch away until the hands become the rain,
entrenched in the mud & unable to regain
their natural state without being sent back to the sky,
the rain by evaporation, the hands when they die &

so i await. i am
reminded that there is no
difference between a graveyard &
my corpse of a house,
the drip of the water sounding like a spade against hollow ground. &

both are where muscles waste away. the body is a gravesite, existing only for those left alive. flowers bloom from the head, but soon wilt & die. there is no-one to tend to them.

***

the storm is dying, becoming weaker now,
it has cleared the air, with the sky dark & low
the crops have all been watered, still mourners flock to their dead
the windows are left open, the wind howls their names—

the transformation from tense to calm & that heady stench of the earth —
all just nature's plea to god, of:

rebirth. rebirth. rebirth.