It collects

and pools around you.

you are greedy,

so you reach out.

letting It soak your sleeves,

bringing It in 

like the last harvest

before a dead winter.

It started 

chipping away at

cells you know

only as yourself. 

It plays 

the hard structure 

of your spine 

like a xylophone of ribs.

holding the lump in your throat still,

you forced down the candles from the wake,

the wax branding your pharynx,

leaving your speech raw and removed;

you learned to eat in silence.

and you learned to again

when the wax came pouring out

of your trembling mouth, you

caught the burn in your bare hands

and welded it to your throat.

you unhinged your humanness

and put your maw around the stuffing

of the toy you clutched at the last dawn.

you remembered what it was like

to have your mouth feel like cotton and cloth.

the emptiness bottomed out your stomach

your heart ached, 

keeled over, and ripped stitches.

so you gave the grief a tender name

that you could fit your jaw around.

your soft human finger turned trigger, aimed at the back

of your freshly burned throat, to try and expulse the very thing

you built your body around.

convulsing, you spit out the rusted remnants,

just to realize it was a loss you couldn’t stomach. you slipped It under your tongue again: 

impatient, persistent, viscous.

your lips cracked and dried, a lonely tongue casting a reel out in a barren sea.

your ravenous teeth tearing flesh, commanded by tasteless helium

trapped under cerebral grooves.

the last thing you recall is 

‎‎ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤhollow, 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤhuman,

holding.

each finger: an unsteady fault line. you watch your collection grow by the mouthful.

you will swallow It all over again.