[vitaminless]

blue silences return their cups, opened and poured into slack-jawed waters at some point, perhaps I lost the specificity of touch their voices are so loud, my ears ring, exhaustion covers them and the world falls cold

I tell Helen, 'If I were there that night she'd be here today. I knew how to calm her better than others. Better than fantastical suitors with promises of wealth, Great sums of wealth by her constant boasting. Well? Where's the money, now? Her funeral, shuffled together From donations and rapid furniture sales, stayed small. Her memory deserves extreme volumes of emotion And yet he has flown! Is she not worth the money in death As she was in life? Or did the money exist at all?'

he used to grip my thighs until they bruised i’d trace the yellow edges press my thumb into the purple some wounds are too important to let heal that’s what i told myself when he tore into ripe flesh the same way i'd sink my teeth into stone fruit in august heat each strawberry gash every time i picked at the scab i am the wound that never heals