I am unhappy from my
soul to my knees.
also I can't feel my fingers
from this muted cold.
also I keep touching my
bones to make sure they're
still there.
I'm not normal, you see.
I'm not okay.
I'm not quite human right now
I just want to
open up blood,
set it loose, mix with skin
drop the blade
and watch the red run free.
I'd trade my words and wishes
for a smile that feels like it
belongs on my face.
I'm not some miserable basset hound
waiting for a bullet between my eyes
but my being here
has drawn me sallow
and I'm distraught.
I want nothing
to do with this cardboard city
full of ghosts and ashes.
I need to learn to fly away.
I don't know how many times
it takes for seeing my own
blood and breaks
to make me feel better, but I must've cut and scabbed and cut and scabbed and cut and scabbed a million, million times;
and my heart's still pumping away.
Here's the plan: once I lose my twitches, my tremors, my compulsions,
I think I'll pierce my heart
at the century mark, my intact self:
right beneath the Vena Cava.
Look for those
thin red ropes
'round my wrists, I can feel
the snakes in my stomach writhing,
pulled taut and shelled like intestines,
wrought like a chain necklace
about this throat.
How many ways
do I want to die?
Punching holes in my body,
raking bloody lines down my wrists,
it’s instant gratification
in seeing
what I hate most
fall to pieces.
