‘The Garrison’

The bones of the boxes on your mantle

speak of whispers,

interlocked fingers,

unlock the back door and let the light in,

promises made unwilling to take back.

I twist syrupy threads of conviction

that stem from the gaps between my teeth,

sopping sterilized scripts unable to find purchase amongst the crystallized proclamations of partnership

that throne themselves

atop your paws.

•

The crackling, venom-seeping gash

within this whiplash cage of bone,

fucking screams for it.

•

Who would want me like that?

I am undeserving of icing-sugar-decay,

calls of the virginal succubus against the throes of a tepid plane that venerates the holy,

the christened palms of someone porcelained in thick bristles of lust and love,

fed fat with pickled fruit and kept hot in your charcoal spitfire.

I had forgotten the circle, the forever,

the cicadas that sing amongst together.

•

I turn sick, turn sinful,

cage in thorns the one who begs for eyes who burrow deeper,

become a creature of begotten lechery,

casting aside the god that lies within connection,

and wail at the planets above that I am so horribly, terribly, unforgivably unlovable.

•

For now I bask,

a rotten parasite that craves demise more than paradise,

in the glow of your soul,

remember I once was here,

and pray that I still belong here too.

•

??/??/2021

•

Isn’t that just the way it goes, though? Finding what has long since been forgotten, and not feeling guilty for forgetting it.