i lie facedown on the train tracks.
the gravel presses symbols into my skin,
but none of them translate.

home is a concept with too many rooms.
i sharpened my alibi
on my mother’s brittle bones
until it fit into a quieter mouth.
she didn't flinch.

the sun unthreads me one fiber at a time.
nothing resists.
blink
blink
blink
each time, the world returns
slightly rearranged—
trees on the ceiling,
windows in my stomach.

i found a way out,
but it only leads back here.
the platform loops
in the shape of an open jaw.
i circled it three times,
then laid down between its metal teeth—
the world doesn’t bite anymore.
it just holds me.

small, warm,
still breathing.
regret nests in the hinge of my jaw.
i keep it clenched, and
it doesn’t protest.
it flicks the lights off
when the rail begins to sing.
it knows the schedule better than i do.

the daylight plucks at my ribs like harp strings.
each note sounds like a name i was never meant to hold.
i buried the moon weeks ago.
she made it difficult to leave.
if you’re still listening—
the train is already halfway through me.

today,
i let the mouth stay open.
maybe the scream will crawl back in.
maybe it never left.

when all the birds have broken their wings
i will cradle your blood in my palms like holy water.
it’s warm,
warmer than god’s voice ever was.

time does not speak to me.
it only gnaws.
i lie beneath the floorboards, fingernails black with rot,
scraping remnants of lace and dried sweetness
from the soft decay of forgotten girlhood.
those torn seams, those salt-laced dreams—
what is purity but a ghost in the mildew?

O hearken!
the lilies are shrieking again.
their tongues curl like burnt scripture.
and i—
forever entranced by the acacia with the broken branches—
watch it weep sap like blood from an open wound,
as if to mourn something
only the trees remember.

i have swallowed the nightingales,
pressed their hollowed bodies
to the roof of my mouth
and vowed to keep them safe.
put your hands within me
and you will know the breaking of their wings—
each bone snapping in rhythm
with the pulse beneath my skin.

Our God sees everything
but he blinks often.
how could anyone have a mother?

your ribcage—once cathedral, now ruin—
shatters under the thousand-eyed weight
of dead saviors.
their halos clang as they fall.
your conscience flickers like static,
blotted out by the black geometry
of the insatiable void.

cassiopeia screams into her chains
but the stars do not loosen.
the universe unfurls
like a paper body
set alight.

O hearken!
kneel for the Great Reprieve!
when all the birds have broken their wings—
may we bleed beautifully.
oh mercy you, oh mercy me.

every time i open my mouth to speak
my tongue tangles up in the branches and bitter blooms.
long limbs knotted up in christ and the
front yard of my childhood carry
green suns instead of rib cages.
i have called you a ruin!
i have called you the home i was torn from!
now that i can only speak in flowers,
can you hear me?

the orchid bears my naïveté
the rose my wounds,
the dying nettle my tenderness.
what if i am small forever? will salvation reach for me?
he sits there, on the willow with the broken branches.
and my mother, she asked him this one sunless sunday:
how can i help her find the light?
but i have already done it all. i have
torn out all my past lives from under rotting floorboards
and i have cut off all my fingers
(i cut off all my fingers just to touch you!)
no, mother. the question is
how can i help the light find her?

salvation spits on my grave.