“they bring me to my knees,” she said
kneeling by their broken beds
and she believed
in nothing and in no one
and on darkness she had fed,she fed on
christmas roses and had ulcers in her mouth,
her voice churned noise inside her and she
used her body then instead —
peeling petals from a poisoned flower
on dirty sheets
where her soul
where her wrists
and where her knees had bled
you once unlocked at the imagined taste of love—
you are made of
fingerprints on which you choke
but you don’t gag, they said
they liked that you don’t gag —
dirty beds
dirty words
“but you can be my whore”
you are a doorknob of a restroom
or a menu at a diner,
nothing could be worse
and nothing could be finer
than their warmth closely next to yours
or the bruises on your spine, you
believed in second chances once
then third, then fourth
until the traffic made you sicker
to the point of no return —
you must like the taste of fire though
because you [still] hunger to be burned
i’m sick of pigs and their swill,
she cries , lungs rattled filthy, barely alive —
one more time.
one more time, she says, and i’m done with this pain
and she breaks her lungs open
and feeds them again.
you pursue a life of war crimes
death itching in your gut like hunger
and in your skull, the fires burn
and burn and burn
leaving the same casualty
at dawn, put your clothes back on
and draw the curtains wide
you are dead and too alive
you’re too alive inside —
but go ahead and bleed with them
your body numb , asleep
take a hammer to your knees to please them
after all, your body’s numb
and you are filled with secrets
you do not intend to keep
You have delicate veins and wild blood — a fatal entanglement with fatal flaws and your body shatters with the breath you try to catch, and
you are a paper-storm. a hurricane of handwritten love letters with lipstick seals and expensive fragrances. you have packaged and bottled and enveloped pieces of your broken body and your broken mind and mailed them to every bidder who would hold you in their arms. sometimes the price was low and sometimes high, but never right. never right at all, and this is how you learned your words and promises don’t mean a goddamn thing.
“My eyes cry dust now, I swear,” she begs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,”
walk blindly with your darkness, baby
get so lost, so lost
and maybe if you’re real still
you won’t think about the cost
i am a broken thing, sparrow coos in laments laden with her wishful thinking, wistful clinking of the chains around her vertebrate. there is bursting in her bones so busted up and bruising while she walks. sparrow fly sparrow fly. the poor thing stumbles with her knees knocking and her clumsy feet so sore and weak; i am a broken thing, i am a broken thing, sparrow speaks in riddles as she begs of you your knives; i am a broken thing, i am a broken thing, i am a broken thing. sparrow sing, sparrow sing. and she collapses to the vultures because sparrow couldn’t fly.
they could not hold you, sparrow
not cradled in their arms but down
they all could hold you down
they could not kiss you, sparrow
they could not touch you
while they touched you
but they all could hold you down
