Cage of Bone

Poetry / 3am / collage / exorcisms

Image: Zivah Avraham

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I fell out of the sky today
sodden by rain clouds
a permanent fixture
in that lobe where emotions rest

except they don’t
ever rest

they don’t rest
they catch my breath
and my heart
and my ribs
in their iron fist
pounding hammers
of muscle and bone
cracking the knuckles of my sanity

I grit my teeth for the hard landing
feeling the cracks
as my spine surrenders its sinuous form
and I lie
flat iron heavy
carved with where I began
a fish finger sandwich for a Sunday roast
and third-hand toys
and trousers patched at the knee
and a jumper
that won’t let me breathe
and the new girl
and the funny accent
and the boy
who twisted my wrist

so tenderly

grass tickles my ear
as I lie still
eyes closed
chest wide open
cauliflower lungs expand and contract
coddling my heart
behind its cage of bone
I glisten
I radiate

flat spine
open chest
hair sleeked against my skull
vernix-cowled like a newborn
mewling in the glare of no going back
etching words in the air
marking time with alphabets
gouged from synapses screaming
against prison walls

I build my jail
brick and soul
meeting expectations
humiliating myself
with what is wanted
not
what I need
and so I bleed

into the soil
the funeral dirge
haunting steps I have not yet taken
but given
thoughtlessly
to someone else

I have a soft spot
it will ossify
some call it healing
I call it a rejection
self-extermination
a lifetime of recidivism
flaying myself
millimetres away
from the flesh
of who I am meant to be
.
.
.
.
freefalling

I’ll break myself all over again
to feel the wind around my heart
inside its cage
of aching bones
and chill uncertainty

Poetry. 3am. Need I say more?

Plus, collage of mine. And from memory, I was having a whale of a time exorcising a shit tonne of stuff, but doing it to music, so there was some fun, hence the Creep lyrics inserted bottom right.

I want to get back into collage.

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If reading this impacted you and you have the means to do so, you can buy me a coffee - fair warning, I’ll buy books! Or notebooks. Or stationery.

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And… Or… you can do this!