S H E D

I shed my skin and with it

The silly little dreams

That occupy the hollows

Of my sinking cheeks,

The place where I once

Stored great ambitions.

I am starving for it now,

Empty of those sparkling,

Shooting star wishes

That used to nourish

My now crumbling soul.

It was all lies, wasn't it?

All a pathetic way

To get myself through

An unbearable winter

Into a violent spring.

I am stuck choking on

The over-inflected notes

Rattling the feet of a piano

So sourly out of tune

I'm not even sure what song

I should be playing now.

Maybe it's a dream.

.

Maybe I'm singing off key

To capture the cognitive dissonance

Webbing like silk between the stars,

You know the ones, with their green tails

And their mischievous twinkling eyes

That like to watch us suffer and bleed out below.

Whoever thought the stars were friends never

Bled beneath them because they are dogs,

Hunting for the next best agony to sink

Their pearlescent teeth into, to feast on,

And I am all too familiar with their hunger.

I have been feeding them for years with my grief,

Feeding them my fracturing dreams through

A drip-line of tears and blood and hollow screams,

Keening wails that echo over the graves of what I've lost.

And they gobble it up, swallow it whole, look for more,

Because they know how willing I am to bleed for them.