My skin feels borrowed tonight,
a soft-lantern hide stretched over nothing.
I press a thumb to my sternum
just to see if the hollow remembers meβ
it doesnβt.
Itβs all quiet in there,
the body has gone sullen,
a taxidermy of its former hunger.
Even the ghosts inside me seem bored,
dragging their nails along my ribs
as though testing the grain of cheap wood.
I want to feel something ruinous.
Let the heart split like overripe fruit,
let the blood remember its heatβ
but all I get is this stillness,
this pale-room quiet
where nothing hurts,
and the lack of hurt
is its own brand of violence.
So I sit here, a mannequin of myself,
a body waiting to be struck by meaning,
wondering how a person can be so full of organs
and still so empty.
Wondering how numbness can feel
like the worst haunting of all.
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Pretty words for ugly things.
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