if every bad feeling is a good feeling rotting
then it’s nothing bad. just love, just love
rotting up inside me. fruit gone too soft
and too sickeningly putrid and sweet.

my brother leaves. I get quiet. it gets harder
for me to quell the hunger and bide my time.
I wasn’t always an angry person, it didn’t
always hurt in this way. and I am wondering

when did I start to need something to
bite down on? if your brain really released
the right chemicals, does that count for
anything? does that make it a little real?

it’s a waiting game, at least, the way I play it.
and I can play it. outlast. still like a statue,
stone like grit in the river, wearing away
at the world without anyone noticing the

change in the seasons. fractures, hairline
in the little bones of wrists and ankles and
birds that could crunch like leaves underfoot,
if given the chance. keep your secrets, no one

wants them anyways. donate them to a
charity shop with a stolen pillow, pot,
pan, and knife used to dig at the expensive
vegetables and tender parts of other flesh
...