was moments from being

as limbs flailed and

ants fought with my skin like each other.

Dying to be less than they were,

starving for the moisture pooling in my pores.

I pray I will never be enough to satiate them all.

They haven't left me,

the ants, they still swarm.

I see black liquid drip down the needle to

my shriveled hand,

veins have all run dry and little legs

crawl like pins where the blood should have been.

but finally the dark void parts for the plaster,

a white almost bright enough to blind

I narrowly escaped a nothingness that I still long to find.

that blast the brain out of my head like a rocket

from the launchpad sitting in my skull,

to a time warp far from the confines of this house

where I can blissfully float between stars,

suspending consciousness

to create a mind as empty as its surroundings:

this vacuum that reeks of moonshine,

full of silence that bends sound like water.

What happens to a human body in the emptiness of space?

Frost coats my eyes,

this cosmic poison seeps into my liver.

My body implodes.

As my heart contracts, it caves inwards,

sucks plasma from my veins,

bursts blood cells,

unravels intestines.

Collapsing lungs force a sharp exhale from my icy blue lips,

and the remnants of my body,

not built to float in the contents of those glass bottles in which

dwelled galaxies,

dissipate into

my bedroom floor.

I have grown up in many places

and strangeness seems to follow me from every

neighborhood to the next.

There is a man,

he looks different each time but I swear

he is one soul in many bodies.

In this life he is wrinkled,

his hair has begun to gray,

and he should not be quite old enough to have lost

his entire mind --

yet,

he is after my young and

swollen brain…

and other cavities.

I am guarded by bone and

I know by now that men are

never to be trusted.

They may as well all be the same.

One man, many bodies.

So I have seen him through the window many times

and like every one of the dozens,

he met my eyes with hunger.

Of course it was only a matter of time until someone

other than me was devoured.

Before I knew you, your grandfather died,

You refused to look at him.

Your father had to close the casket.

I find it a waste of time to consider the wishes of the dead but,

when I die I want to become a tree.

Death can freeze someone in time,

it can do many strange things.

“Here one minute, gone the next”

does not make any sense and I will be stuck until I see a body

or am the body.

You however,

are unable to face the reality of cold skinned death,

a corpse makes such reality far too difficult to ignore.

I cannot blame you.

This is why I do not want a casket.

but then again, it's all the same to me because

funerals are for the living

and I am utterly ecstatic I will never endure my own.

Friends and strangers and you, will dress like shadows and pose questions to god.

I will be neatly filed in a coffin to collect dirt and dust.

Tears spilling across handkerchiefs and elm,

as I am summarized inside a eulogy.

It is likely awful but,

I can make no remark, I do not hear a single word.

And there is nothing I want less than to spend eternity locked in a box

but still my wishes do not matter.

I do not believe in souls and I cannot haunt you.

Funerals are for the living.

And so I will be immortalized in a condition suitable for them.

I will me made up and locked away and buried

all before I begin to rot.

Only the worms will see my true form and you among the living,

can mourn me, not as I am but,

as I was.

but now it appears I was wrong,

my unfinished business seems to be to suffer through

this service on my own

Both ends of a gun are the wrong one,

but two wrongs make a right.

I'm not so sure I belong in this world and

swallowing a bullet seems it will correct such an anomaly, so

I place my hand on the trigger, mouth on the barrel

shoot the bullet through the skull and see

bone bloom like a bomb

from above.

A bottle can hold so much allure

calling you to drink its contents,

but all too often one forgets to be wary.

Check and find, or not, it labeled poison.

I always thought myself to be wiser,

wise enough to heed the warnings on the glass,

wise enough to catch my breath

before going out to swim

in a sea of tears.

I imagined I’d have the wit to

ward away its end, before

letting the toxin become

my everything.

I’m drowning in it now.

So small I can misplace myself,

yet large enough that I never will.

My body,

a constant reminder of the space I displace

in the ocean.

How easy it’d be to blame

this flood on poor packaging

but in truth, mayhaps I need to come

with a tag marked ‘poison’

tied around my neck.

My Love,

You are the only one I care to say goodbye to, but this note is going nowhere, you are gone, so I have nothing to say to anyone.

For my own sake: (because sometimes thoughts do not feel real without record) I am going away. I will write in the woods until my bleeding hands numb the broken heart, or I will die there.

Finally, I will be left alone.

Goodbye.

My stomach feels, from time to time

as if you

are eating through its lining

but I find, you

quite a beautiful pest.

Your wings fade in sunlight but

color does not exist in the night time and

if someone bleached my wings I too

would become

a butterfly

on a path of destruction.

Because you flock to the moon and

them to the sun

it’s such a shame for their wings to catch fire while

no one bats an eye at

your corpse in the dust.

Sunlight outshines moonlight,

every time.

Yet, light holds more allure when it shines

from the darkness.

The night sky glimmers rather than

burns.

I too, prefer the soft light of the moon

and we

cannot be Icarus but

life in the shadows is better than none.

Blood collects in the hole I've dug in my lip.

I'm eating through my flesh

and sanity drains down the

back of my throat like

metal.

If left alone I will rip

myself to shreds

but I cannot claw myself out of this body,

nor chew

myself out of this ill-fitting skin.

My mind has grown too big

or perhaps it's my skulls who's walls

have closed in upon themselves but

some part of my consciousness is

suffocating with

all the thoughts that cannot escape the

labyrinth of folding tissues that is my brain

so I am left in a prison

of cells

with no door.

When I was 15 I worked in an ice cream shop.

When I was 15 I was bulimic.

One can imagine how these two truths could coencide in freezer burned guilt an such stingy hands.

It took great strength to wind spiraled, rocky roads and force them into the shape of a cone.

Strength I almost did not have.

My right arm grew strong and sore.

And soon I developed more sympathy for the toilet bowl than my self --

why should it be the one to bear the acid burns.

I have never kneeled for anything that much.

I guess I've found my god.