when i opened myself to her my guts came out like writhing vipers that hissed and snapped at the autumn air in angry knots

my bones like broken glass held together by rusted barb wire and muscles like slugs perch upon the slick ivory calcified remains

when i told her i loved her she recoiled in disgust as the words fell like spiders from my tongue and tried to nest inside her hair

and in her revulsion i saw the fun house mirror reflection of a broken toy left to fix itself and now a crooked monster lurks instead

when i went to leave she said i could stay but the silent away from her was louder than the wind blowing through the bird cage in my chest

so i etched my name on the ground at her feet and watched as she swept it up and left a pile of my discarded need on her stoop

i was the first freeze of the season and she was the boulder tossed to test the ice thickness and as she crashed through me i floated away

the serpents inside my milky glass skeleton striking and spitting venom that melted the lock and freed the bird from it’s cage

i didn’t see the gun raise in her delicate hands but felt the blast and saw the flash of feathers as it was blown from the sky and i slowly sank

and as i scraped enough pieces to crawl away she asked where i was going and my lead tongue hung dead in my open mouth

she validated my parking but not my feelings as i walked away, the pull of gravity stronger in her absence than by her lovely side

i walked down not away, sinking further with every cement lined shoe step down the quicksand hollow that led home from her heart

sloppy needlework from dead hands made quick work of the gaping hole that seemed the whole of who i had become absent her

and as i left her tongue darted out and snatched one of the spiders as it ran across the porch and i felt the crunch as the legs writhed down her throat