Hunger Pains

It begins with a bang.

I forget to eat for a few months and
I drown in cheap ideas with pretty names,
the ones they fill books and barren wrists
and stormy heads with, and soon,
moonlight shines from inside
my ribs and I am a lighthouse.

Thank you for the things you gave me,
intrinsically, a knowledge of
how to properly wear
myself. Thank you

for not fixing me.

I used to write about the color
of your voice, always blue-- the sky
before I fell asleep and the morning
dragging me back; I wonder

that you could’ve loved me better
if you explained who the
Something was that shared your bed
at night, or why insincere words

were your favorite.

My poems still cling to my skin
even when I sleep. even when
I wake, an anchor. even when
I boil myself alive and unfold
like a pallid lily inside your
heavy hands;

and after enough time,
I forget to say goodbye.

Today,

I pick the scabs on my hips,
kiss the sorry out of your smile,
and breathe like this air
isn’t already a million years old.