Consumption

Your flesh
Makes me sick—
Nauseated with guilt
You make me so aware
Of my heavy heart,
Heaving and gasping— grasping for air.
Your careless spitting,
And singing to Keats,
Just to arouse
My scarlet expectorant
Leaves a frame—a scaffolding of what once was
A voice louder than yours.

A Visual Taste from the Book

Original Image by: Sarah Carrasco for "A Letter from Gunner"

All That's Left

What took you
in the night
through our glass window?

They came so quietly—
you,
you and the glass
shattered before me.
Outward.
Not inward.

The blood and glass
in the grass
and you,
were all outside.

Come back.
Let me piece you together.
Come back to me.
We can fix this
because you,
you were the only other one.
The only other one there.
Except for them.
What took you from me?

The Doctor

He doesn’t see a human with a soul,
someone who loves something.
He sees a specimen
a tiny cell
willfully
throwing itself against the wall of existence
for reasons unknown.
The human
The human being with the soul.
He, too is trying to break a wall.
Both specimen and human
share one thing
they either die
or they leave a dent.
They just leave a dent.

Dream on an Isolated Vessel 1

The water beneath me was a retched

Cold

Obsidian slate.

I could hear the waves,

They crunched parts of the vessel.

This was the end

And I let a tear go —

The tear was lost in the water 

of unending dimness.

It really seemed 

too dark.

A fragment of metal emerges.

I’ve lost my mind now.

I go to my safe spot.

I jump in the water.

Everything that touched me

Turned into fragments of lost somethings.

But they hurt.

I gladly floated on my back — 

pins and needles constantly stabbing me.

I then knew

what it was.

We were to be devoured

by all of these pieces thrown away — 

tucked inside of our bodies until they’re too big

And you explode.

I know what it is now.

And so do you.