corporis

caverns stretch between my limbs / my limbs that hug the covers for comfort. /

they crawl deep, entrenched in my humidity / I can smell fatigued satisfaction after a day averagely spent on my breath. / my foot, with its awkward angles and veins that arch whenever and wherever they feel, fumbles with the sides of blank fabric, / twisting it with feigned deliberation and murmuring thanks for its life kept secret. / my thigh and calves prickly masses, / they wrestle with missing curves and stubborn caverns of their own. /

a waning neck condenses, hidden peach fluff and all, onto sheets worn thin. / sifting through holes in the weaving, it pools in a milky mass below warmth / and leaves an ugly slump of short hairs behind, stamping a seal on what it used to be. / I sprinkle them over the liquid grave before / a faint film coats my throat, and I choke on its writhing. /

the film finally squirms out / unbidden / from every corner and gap, launching its body into the caverns and out again toward the night / (but not before whispering in a serpent tongue to my brow, pointing out uncovered inflammations with a condescending talon / and slipping under my outstretched arms, teaching them how to slant properly) / I think it always leaves with a little more than just itself, but who knows what it steals. / nobody notices the tiny things missing / until one day it’s all gone. /

my eyelids stand speechless on the pillowcase, and I bid them farewell too / to flee, float, far up toward the night. / failure awaits, but the ceiling is there to bear the shock of my trying. / for that, I am grateful. /