Slip

My heart is in your hands,

I don't need to shake your hand to know you have a firm grip.

Down the rabbit hole

in another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was going to get out again. There were doors all 'round the hall, but they were all locked, and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

I am back with scars to show.

Press two fingers to my neck, show me a pulse

Tell me my signs are vital

I'm over this,

but the black circles under my eyes betray me.

Crack my ribs and I'll crack a smile (I promise),

fix what's broken, cut away the dead, amputate the sick, the sad, my mind.

This gangrene is spreading faster than you will ever know.

And it's all you, you're the goosebumps on my flesh, the shivers that rack my body in the night. You're the hair that comes out by handfuls in the shower, you're the lingering chill in my room, in my bed that used to know your warmth. You break my bones, you sleep in my marrow.

I lean my head against the rattling glass window of the west-bound bus, my teeth shiver in their gums. Sometimes if I hold my breath, I can hear the gangrene consuming, destroying me.

This I know, my heart will be the last to go.

Ascending... descending?

covet.

Ghosting

And this is why I have decided
to pull these old white sheets from my head.
I'll leave them folded neat and tidy
so that you'll know I'm out of hiding.

"Il y a des jours ou tout semble tellement irreel." 

I want a love like Harry and Marion's. It's too bad I'm not fucked up on heroin, maybe I'd meet someone genuine.

From here to...

I wonder whether dreams are actually reality and what I'm doing now is just my brain making sure it's functioning properly. It would be nice if dreams were real. A lucid dreamer's life would be perfect. Never monotonous, never ugly. You could fly, travel time, create the perfect mate, look exactly as you would want to, have the most fantastical adventures. Compared to the dream world, waking life seems extraordinarily dull, to put an oxymoron into practice.

...

And another thing. I won't forgive you for appearing in my dream last night. I was stable, neutralized before you started talking to me again. It's dangerous adding another chemical to the mix, you've no idea what you've started. 

It angers me that I enjoyed my dream as much as I did. Your text subtracted four hours from my sleep pattern last night. Fuck you, don't do this to me now. I've only just gotten some traction on these weathered tires and anyhow, I've had enough of the ditch, we're well-acquainted.

Just tell me what to expect. My bruises are still vivid from the first punch, I fear a second one would collapse my cheekbone, drive bone splinters into my brain, knock me out of the ring for good. Tell me what to expect so that I know which side to brace myself for contact.

And so the chemicals react. The pressure builds.

It's what we say

I lay on my mother's bed as she spoke to me. A rare occasion of closeness that scarcely presents itself. Something she said to me struck me. 

"Smile," she said, "Feed the beast. Just don't ever let them see you broken."

I kissed her aging cheek and turned off her lights. Crawling into my own bed, I let her words stir in my mind as I allowed my body heat to warm the sheets beneath me. 

Feed the beast.

"Hi...?"

Hi.

Your former pristine ivory glow has dulled to an off-white somewhat. Your pretty paint has come away, cracking, peeling, yellowing. But somehow I knew I'd not heard the last of you.

Are you the beast, or am I? If indeed I am, then I rest assured that there must be beauty out there somewhere.