Sick Again

I want to reach into my chest and crack my ribs like a wishbone
Slipped out from your dinner
Chocking on my flesh
Too thick
Cut that fat off
Hold it on the tongue
Just for a second
Do you see how it melts?

I want to rip each strand of hair from my head and build a nest
Wrap my bones around dead skin
Balancing on branches
Waiting for my mother to bring me my food

Let me crack my toes
And pull at my neck
Until I’m all turned around
And I can’t remember which way I wanted to go

I want to press my flesh to hot stovetops
And imprint an ironic iron on to my stomach
That could never be smoothed
Flattened where it once creased
Steam shrieking
Opening my pores so wide you could lay in them
On a warm winter afternoon
Let the coconut oil spill on to your cotton cloth

Break my shoulders
Contort my bones
Into a slim build
So you will finally see me for the woman I am
Small

Take these teeth and grind them into grains
Walk them to my favorite beach
All the way down south
Scatter them along the rotting sea lines
Building sand castles

Rip out the meaty slab of flesh they call a tongue
And stab it into the sand
My home flag
Surrendering in silence

Again

And with my contorted
Ailed
Strange body
I dance on home
Sinking straight into the sea
As she takes me under
For the last time

Author's Note

Picture - vintage fantasy magazine