Catatonia

She scrawls life line tallies on her wrists in scars
to mark each year passed
and haunts bars looking for the love of strangers.
she finds malt whiskey and vermouth; strange mouths to kiss
she tips them back the way a lover might tip her chinny chin
chin
She whispers slurs and looks into the abyss of gin.

He inhales death with the smoky kisses of cigarettes
injects life paraphrasing echoes of love with hypodermics to keep
the hypothermia of loneliness back
but it creeps and creeps
a slow paralysis
under the windowsill, rain falling bleak on the pane to drip
drip
into her veins
soft dark over the threshold of the doorway to her soul
writing ink into her shadow, there -
melting behind the lidded stupor stare of dreamless minds
it stirs and wakes,
invisible monsters sleeping in her chest
they bare their teeth and bleed
pain naked in the light of morning
ugly and beautiful in the honesty of strangers unable to turn
away
from a car crash in the dusk.
walking in darkness
searching for touch.

Bruises well blue in the hush of a scream muffled by a pillow
as love overflows into broken bones
jealousy hides in the marrow
and sorrow fills the silence left where screams are held back by
lips stretched tight with secrets padlocked into night.
caged hearts beat themselves to death trying to escape
and the cancers sleep and sleep
waiting to be born.
In the mornings they rob the storms of hair from restless minds
the lifelines once stroked and brushed by lovers
leaving eggshell skulls naked and alone
wandering the streets leaving breadcrumbs
lost and broken parts (crying, dying to be whole)
trying desperately to find
a
way
home.