Has the moth in your flame

Finally begun to complain?

Weathered nerves, testimonies

Burns—felony—in third degree

.

When the pressure caved in your ribs

And pink catgut spun from the ceiling

Drenched with red but never bleeds

Wax gums clenched from dissenting

.

But when the moth in your flame

Brings the fire back into your skin

Their sanctity becomes your agony

Pain—murder—in second degree

.

While ashes shall beget winter ashes

As dust conceals carrion under pasts

Maybe you deserved a gas lamp myth

And maybe the flies deserve to watch.

the wary thought

of october graves

in autumn sunrise

her name and yours

on an open letter for

the future young, as

old boats unfurl their

paper sails and the

breeze flows north

so often they whisper

—

“oh, i wish you had

never said a word”

their lacklustre ire

lesions seeping into

bandages and coffee

grounds and the very

last time you saw her

alive that day, of the

very last time you ever

felt alive, that fateful day

—

what more is left now?

statues still into monuments

and the gentlest reminder

of a violent decision that

carved another number

into your mausoleum, and

hers—it’s a strange way to

love, to unravel with her skin;

to twist, and to fade, and to

be the breath she always saves.

keep your passions out of sight

out of mind

otherwise you exist and you’re begging for friends and begging and friends feel pathetic—you’re pathetic—you ooze of something resembling toxicity when your shaky hands send your sugary messages and say an insufferable hi; and whenever there’s an extra stressed diacritic or a misspelled goodbye in between the crooked lines, suddenly silence is falling fast and the loathing is indistinct from the love and you’re a bloodless strawman tattered with pleasantry pins and niggling needles, digging into entangled veins as it scrutinises

what have you done wrong again?

a psychological tarantella in the stumbling beat of one-two trying to keep your pulse awake, a metronome of apologies

so-rry, so-rry, so-rry

so-rry i-sur-vived but that’s breaking the time signature too much

so apologise for that all over again

in a room full of starving venus flytraps, better to be an innocent fly on the wall, better to innocently drown in ointment than to suffer through the blackout pain of wandering—wondering—whimsical flagellation

turned to a starving artist’s magnum opus

turned to crude art and wasted words and dissonant notes and vague madness and messiness and inside jokes and all the things that make you you

all of the things that make you wish you weren’t you

a lack of understanding leading to unmending

better to keep yourself out of sight

out of mind

than to exist and have your devout passions scourged at the pillar of better judgment

keep creating. the universe will not hold its breath for you. stop creating. the universe you control will start to suffocate.

keep existing. stop existing. what’s the difference except finding out

there’s nothing—no one—nothingness—

left to exist for?

and maybe that should be enough.

because one of these days, the world will get pulled from under your feet and you’ll fly, oh you’ll soar and it’s going to be beautiful and no one will be there to watch your plight

and no one will be there to see you c r a s h

leaving grief. and i—i now remember why

i should never have allowed anyone

to get under my buckling skin

for fine friends are only fine, friends until

they know the perfect way to damage

the stillborn remnants of what you hold on to

them, without patience, distraught,

you; promises of finding someone better

overhearing a devotion that cannot possibly be true

only useful in the event of an epiphanic letdown

i love you but why have i loved you

did i love you because i knew it was nothing to be proud of

or worse, something for a reckless hobby

i love you because you were kind for five seconds

and it was only fair to bleed when it should not be enough

did you not love me because i wasn’t enough

or because you knew i was nothing to be proud of?

from knowing too much, trusting too well

follies and fey melodies for a final disconnect

i loved you never mean what you say

say anything to say anything to say anything to say

sorry. your smug conversation is one i carry still with me

even as the tactile memory of you burns

and my singed skin curls into the shape of an old friend

who never cared. i never remember to forget

they’ll always be there until they aren’t

leaving, grief, and i—i no longer wish for a happier end

i only wish there was a softer way to recover.

Bleed out deep blue lipstick and

You’ll fake fucking cool tonight

Blistered problems, don’t scratch at ’em

Pretty in leprosy and pink tights

-

And when the sun inflames distaste

To reveal the sick mess you made

Scabs in your nails, bruised mouth so stale

Ugly in stonewashed jeans and plague

crawling crying clever huh

my veins are filled with saltwater

clench love stop heart

beat i must beat i must beat i must

wash my hair and get out of bed and wake up

necessarily in that order

if i want to love myself, but i can’t

god i don’t believe in you anymore but

god help me

god damn it

please pleas people pleased

pleasure's all yours

please don't come again

i am rotting inside out

i am going to put a knife under my abdomen

and write a going-out poem

for the pretty mortuary doctors to gobble up

if no one else

and nothing more, burn my high school yearbook

into lungfuls of cigarette smoke

and first last kisses

and coversations in unflavoured seltzer

bottoms up and choke

after all

i am only another failed experiment

in the class of 2024

neon glitter pen signatures rap tap tapping to

the hypnotising rhythm of

a crisis hotline

oops. i’m sorry. i swear i meant to live

i swear i don’t know how i got all the way down here

but cannot get out

i swear it’s my slaughtered knees

being bad butchers

making squealing pigs out of my soul

squeeeeeeee

i swear it’s not me but it’s

always me me me

meeeee

i can’t count how many times i’ve uttered tired

but burden hasn’t been dulled down

and i am all play and dullness

dig me out back with the jack and build

a house out of my bird bones

and cheap twine

when my head’s heavy with birdseed instead of

oozing medicine

i swear i’ll be someone else not me

i know you didn’t want this

didn't want me

i’m so j8ui

sorry, oh god

i just wanted to be okay

let me be.

but i can’t i shan’t i see

mama, i swear i didn’t mean to make you sad again

i didn’t mean to. i didn’t. i didn’t try to

spin your vertigo with unravelling spools

of unconditional devotion

untangle my anchor

from your sturdiest continent

and let me be, sinking sobbing stupid

i’m sorry i'm so

tirec

huh. i never tried but

mama, give me the strength to love you back

There’s a million glass slippers running across the galaxy

Scintillating in quiet fervour, wondrous constellated reveries

In sizes that vary, from supernova explosions to dwarf suns

But I could point out the most distant and say it’s the one

The one that barely emits light, almost devoured by the darkness

Of the eventide firmament, a pale eternity of madness

Unremarkable in comparison to other astral entities that rage

Indigo skies blotched with abstract shades, while it burns a solemn beige

But that broken glass slipper is the one I will always adore

Every night, I gaze upon it while nescient eyes shall choose to ignore

There’s a million glass slippers scattered across this infinity

But I only have one, my dear Cinderella star, I know she fits me perfectly.

-

i am reduced to dull bones

and swallowed i-adore-you’s

and something like mildly waking up

in the middle of another bookmarked

“dark and stormy night”

and staying that way, a flavour of

staying-up insomnia that’s only ever so

vaguely disinterested in keeping me untroubled

and undefined—staying up up and away

past my anachronistic bedtime

-

there’s an itch within my dull bones

in places i’m frustratingly unable to reach

even if i stretched myself out thin

like human laffy taffy, sticking to the roof

of your watering mouth, like a communion wafer

when you’ve been rather sinful

and maybe just as bland—if not blander—

like human laffy taffy, and none the same too sweeter

the childish joke has been on me

but i never sent one over

-

are my dull bones broken?

i’m no doctor and it’s far too numb

to agonise over, but sometimes my limbs akimbo

rattle whenever i accidentally hit the

banister on my way up the rickety stairs

to brush the fractured stubs of my broken teeth—

maybe it was just their fragments

i forgot to floss out, jangling a merry little melody

reminding me function—don’t malfunction—

the medicine cabinet’s full of spare parts, so go on

and remember: don’t trip on the second to the last step

-

i would never be loved by my dull bones

and not because of them of them, either

i fancy, sometimes, that the tapestry of skin

precariously draped above them would be enough

to make me look close to resembling “someone”

but i can’t even fool myself in front of the mirror

with my spinning head upside-down

so who the hell am i trying to fool—

to impress—to stuff me into a tailored suit

and thread my emptied veins into a wedding dress?

-

only me and my dull bones

my dull bones that jut out in strange places

like an abandoned jenga game

my dull bones that never remain in place,

no matter how many times i unpleasantly shove it back in

my dull bones that itch and break(?) and

cower under blanket-stitched skin and protest

whenever i get too comfortable being uncomfortable

living with their afflictions—affections—affectations

and i laugh it off again because

my dull bones feel ticklish; or is that just pain...?

ha-ha-ha. how silly of me to think

i could still be reduced to dull bones—sullen bones—dull stones—

when dull bones are all i’ve ever been.

-

you are love at the end of the world, something spelled without a glottal plea

the stars on my crown hang heavy tonight and i’ve barely slept for an hour but my mind drifts off to weary constellations and i sometimes wonder if we were aligned at all

you, vague hurt, you, toothache in the middle of a birthday party

you, a love like no other

and running without wolves to guide our journey, the forest scratches every inch of bare skin and i would cry out if you hadn’t done the same to me in your restless tossing and turning, there is love in your eyes but no love in the blood you make me bleed

there is still something left to be said. but my mouth is dry and full of sand, kiss it and catch a fly on the wall, smear ointment on its wings and maybe i’ll tell you about how i feel

and it isn’t a good one, it isn’t a love i towed beyond fathoms of seawater and across miles of irradiated coastlines, it isn’t me, count the distance and end up with infinity in one sitting, infinity with end, infinity to beg you of love

beg me of a message unclear, home sweet home

it’s better than nothing. the woozy way i walk into the ocean with a pocket full of rocks and a mind full of bitter sloshing around, is better than nothing, love

it’s better than everything love

because it’s something i still wish to keep, wish on a nebulae cluster that doesn’t exist the second you force yourself to breathe out, screams

no comforting the choir, i’ll drape mine around your bruised shoulders and shake both of them softly until i’ve killed half the universe with my hubris, until we’ve killed off every erstwhile incandescence just to look a little off-kilter, early morning, i’ve never felt better despite never finding out what repose meant

the sky is red at sunrise and then what

and then we, and then we

feel fine

you are love at the end of the world, and i am ready to struggle for survival. invite me into your rose-tinted apocalypse and allow me to decide a fate which was never mine to rewrite

it’s nothing

it’s better than nothing love

filthy fingernails

tap against the glass

spilling water on

the sides, dripping

-

your cruel enjoyment

only lasts for a minute

but it completely shakes

my entire tiny world

-

flakes fall from above

pedigree lies you feed me

still tasteless. still bland

but i eat it up, starved

-

for something more

than plastic neon pebbles

and fake algae; i open

my mouth but no words

-

bubble out. left gaping

stupidly—staring at the

boundary i can't cross

as you get bored of me

-

and stand up, leaving to

find another pastime. i wonder

if we share the same brain

for how quickly you forget i exist.