The bruise at the base of my spine is bu*terfly shaped, dressed and downstairs.
My mother's eyes flinch away from a skinniness I'm oblivious to.
Lank-haired; skin splotched with bruises like split wine.
Some few drunken strangers trying to lock their eyes into a body that's slowly disappearing, sitting-curled in on myself: at the center of this, there must be a sort of purity if I just work myself in a little deeper.
The bones that catch the cold and hold it must point somewhere.
Waking, snared in the limbs of someone I never see again - an unfamiliar voice trying to pin me down with sleep-fuzzed concern. He's slack.
Flesh bags round his waist and I'm repelled, I'd do anything not to have to touch.
Curling tighter around a hunger that cuts to the bone, trying to find the center that must be round here somewhere.