STARLESS EYES

And I Felt So Exposed

My bones / black from nightmares dressed as daydreams / that seeped into my flesh from / the muscle of my brain / of my stupidly naive heart / were strewn on the shore of your hands / your eyes held me in their wake / as I gathered my skeletal remains / and arranged them as a sinner begging / palms held together by red rope / a head bent / snapped from the spine / oh and I was praying / for the first time since heaven decided / my palms were always bright red / from the murdered hearts I collected / in the caverns of my soul / I prayed to a deluded god who had watched me / a child at the time / cry for a mercy that was not mine / to want / to hold / as I saw the tears of my mother mix with the ashes / of her dreams / from the blue pools of despair that enveloped my father / who loved her like a man loves smoke / enough to live off of by inhaling / but never staying for the exhale of relief / I prayed / to god for you to see my bones / and pummel them to powder / because the more I showed the / praying child / inside myself / the sooner you would leave / like the love that held my parents / a smog so toxic and humanely comfortable / it would evaporate / when you saw me as the sinner on her knees / before an altar of dissected hearts / praying to be coated in hell's fires / to escape from the heaven held / in your arms