lostseawords —

pull out worms from your stomach like the fertile Mesopotamian soil bed until you’ve gone too deep.

now you’re pulling up roots & the venous thing in your hand is your digestive tract.

swallow back down quick before it begins leaking.

& finally after i had read your heartfelt letter for the thirtieth time i began massaging shea butter & coconut oil into my skin each night sleeping with a hair full of collagen moister hoping it all would permeate deep enough in the way dante had sunk through the porous rocks of hell to soften the walls i had built around my heart

if virgil could be swayed then perhaps this older, less kind version of myself could be as well to allow some sincerity in once again because i feel as though i’ve let you down love, please don’t say i’ve become something you do not recognize, dear grasshopper

i am trying & you are no longer here to press the bottle to my lips to chirp against my back i must hold the glass myself & my arms are weak i can no longer sleep through the night without your reminder of the morning my bones have softened & grown tired my sturdy skeleton has spent too much time wading in this temporal waterbed

an invisible beast rampages through my mind which is no stronger than a china shop

stay still stay very still

don’t look at its horns don’t mind its snarling teeth

it smells cowardice & feeds off fear

so stay still stay very still

hold your breath if you must bit your tongue to taste copper

if you move, you die & right now, while the beast is breathing down your neck that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing but when it leaves & it will leave the porcelain will be beautiful again the chimes will sound & the breeze from an open door will lift the sweat off your brow

my mouth is always dry & my brain is always swollen my spinal chord is clogged blocked like my salivary gland diluting my thoughts through first a filter of pain preventing my fornix from  processing anything the words from my mouth are hardened by my lack of vitamin D & salt like tap water too harsh to scrub anything clean i produce too much too little like this world is simultaneously  too much & not enough

in the dreams that do come i spend the time begging my ancestors to let me die without holding resentment for my lack of life & fetishization of hades’ phallic scythe

Even the roof of my mouth is cold, Darling; My teeth are aching, My gums, bleeding: Tongue, numb.

Every inch I move, Darling, My shirt rises at my back For such a lack of you, Holding me down.

I believe in the death of emotions

The rising of tides & implosion of stars

The god you meet when you face brick

The rubber-banding of your heart with your back against the wall

Mine is a dark, dark sea

Where the artificial has penetrated 

God looks me in the eyes through a mirror

I beg my lover to sieve sand through the air, hold the wind just right

The tapping of a clock, the incessant pounding of my anxious digit

If the dark, dark sea is mine then I’d be able to reach down

Pluck it off the lips of feathers & save it from digestion