Bells Ring Slowly

This wound cannot be patched

as my blood runs gelatinous, sweet and black

Only to be tasted by the chafed lips of the inflictor, a mirror

The heavy-handed swift punishing judge

whose sentence is lifelong and indifferent

as puddles of stagnant water

You cannot stop the bleeding with patches alone,

as saturation will reject all but infliction

Reparations all slide off into oblivion

The hunter and the hunted have become one

I was borne for self-destruction

Borne to bleed and freeze

Tears used to jimmy dried scabs of blood from these sheets

Pills to control, to redirect, to attempt to unlearn

Unsatisfied with what this world has had to offer

Satisfaction when the heart stiffens and succumbs

to the hunter's hands, gelatinous, sweet and black

No more pills, no more adjournment

The higher the walls around

the more I will jerk them down upon me

It has become easier to bury the bodies

than to bury the memories and impulsive thoughts

that serve only to confuse and burden

One hand on the shovel, the other around my throat

Borne to bleed and freeze

I have broken all the warm hands that heal

Bones snap and shatter

Muscle tissue around the eyes stretch

and quiver like a fish skinned alive

The only honest satisfaction

Cold and weak, I hope none remember

I will be happy to forget