By Grace Farmer

 

my membrane is a flower and too many people have plucked my petals from the stem

romanticize my bulletproof ecstasy

choose a rare breed of paper white skinned martyrs, have the pleasure of breaking your manic brittle bones over their blood red lips
her cheeks look rosy to everyone but her master

for you, they’re shades of black and blue with a rosy red outline

numb hearted handling
satisfactory lace washed lullabies
banal sunken eyes

hearths of sheet metal and crushed diamond

 

you made an attempt to build a flame in your heart with the chopped down tree her initials were carved into
it was faulty yet you made it sprout with poison aimed for your veins

it began to dance like her

you fell to your knees and wept

the articulated audience in your dreams brought you a sparrow from the tree

this tree neighbored the kindling in your heart
the sparrow made your body shake

your fingertips bleed

your lips bled rivers of combinations of consonants and vowels only the trimming of your childhood bedroom walls could understand

screams of insanity trickled down the staircase

the sanctity of your mental firth
unwell and drowning
this desire you held for it to be stagnant

this created a sea of static
this couldn’t be contained even in the nearby well

 

nothing could block your doubt
so you downed another gallon of syrupy sweet poison

an attempt to drown it all out
something to augment that doubt

 

the sparrow’s tears can’t even procure your embrace
you still lust after it’s lengthy wings covered in lace

the sparrows belly so gorged with despair brings those who plead to their knees
the aggressors shorten it’s wingspan
the aggressors thereafter create a timespan
the sparrows mouth fills full with flame and the sparrow swallowed it
as it killed over you recovered your past lover

 

i only weep between sheets

 

when the briars leave my body teach me how to love softly
teach me how to love softly
teach me that i am more than a body
teach me how to love softly