I have been swallowing the night
like a bitter pill.
The moon hangs above me
like an old bruise—
yellow, swollen,
and uninterested.
The mirror is a liar.
It tells me I am still here
while I feel myself
leaking out of the edges of my skin,
draining into the floorboards
where even the ants
wouldn’t bother with my name.
I want to say save me,
but my tongue is full of pins.
I want to say mother,
but she’s asleep in a field
of white dresses,
all of them nailed
to the wind.
So I sit here,
desperate,
a tangle of wrists and teeth,
waiting for the dawn
to crawl in
and remind me
how much
it hurts
to be
alive.