literature

what's the point of life without my heart?

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snowveins's avatar
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Literature Text

i. i'm going to peel my skin back
layer by layer, everything dead and dying
and broken and dry and cracked,
til my insides split open and split out.
i want to stain your hands red with
my blood, and i want to be permanent,
and i want you to scrub at your fingers
with soap til you can't tell what's your blood
and what's mine.

ii. one day i'm going to slice myself open
and i won't bleed. there's not going to be
anything left—so you'll hang me on the clothesline,
let me dry out in the sun, let my skin wither
and prune and wrinkle until you can crack
me open with a nutcracker. look inside.
look at how empty i am—look at how i lied
to you.

iii. in the future, you don't love her
or me, or anyone—especially not yourself.
you're going to remember my dried husk,
the clothespins digging into my shoulders,
my lips cracked and dry and sandpaper.
[collect your scars,] i whispered, my voice 
high and thin and torn from my own windpipe.
[wear them well.]

iv. you won't sing me to sleep anymore,
so i roll over and close my eyes as fallen angels
rub the sore spot between my shoulder blades
and hum me the melody of a thousand-year-old
lullaby. they can sing twenty pitches at once,
and the song reaches so high towards the heavens
that i think they're trying to carry themselves home—
one day, they will leave me, as you did.
as i will, too, eventually.

v. how could an angel be bound to an earth like this?
my body is a physical atrocity unfit for mortal eyes
and most tank tops—so i stay in the dark.
but you—you find dark paths in the woods,
and you burn yourself alive to light them. 
how can you see me and blow out the candle?
how can you see me and prefer the darkness?
(you're not dying now, you'll survive somehow.)

—chara
© 2016 - 2024 snowveins
Comments3
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SophisticatedCleffa's avatar
Lamb of God... that's strong.

(Also stanza 2 made me think of Parasyte -The Maxim- and I have no idea why)