HOME | DD

Description
put me under, cover my face, stuff my lungs with your chemical lies.

if they were to take me apart,
slice open my chest,
peel back the skin keeping me whole,
they would find:

a. one heart, slowly ticking.
(they would not find anything,
but they would have to say they did.
after all, girls can't live without a heart.
they forget that i'm not the first:
a score of girls walking even though
they should have faded long ago.)

b. each rib curved so perfectly,
a shield around my lungs.
(a cage, keeping my breath from bursting
out of my skin. know that this is just me,
held together by nature,
unable to lose control of myself.)

c. two sacs of cells, nestled beside each other.
(no first-hand smoke here, no sir.
only second-hand dust, only
things i could not get rid of,
only bits of places i've been,
caught in my body.
postcards of memories i can't see.)

d. a skeleton, still and alive.
(sleeping, with blood cells being produced
in the hollows of my curves.
the rattling of my bones cannot be heard,
but if it could, my skeleton would tell you
all my secrets. it would beg you,
please don't leave me.
i never fought the monsters under my bed,
i just turned them into the skeletons in my closet,
the skeletons i wear inside of my body.)