Bonework

The lingering twinge above my hip reminds me–
I need to crack myself open again.
I must be careful what I carry with me.
I must keep my bones close at hand,
I must call them by their names.

The monsters knocking
From inside the closet–
Scarred,
Too-many-limbed,
Neon-haired.
We are interlaced,
Not merely superimposed.
The mirror is fogging me
Up inside and I live
In my own well-worn lungs.

To breathe into the very tips of my toes,
The body electric,
The breath unending.
My hair
Sighs.
I wash the grime off,
Bathe the blank slate in electricity
To get me through
The sheet-white winter,
My brain radioactive,
My skin a goldfish–
The water, ever present, washes memory clean.

I’m not used to existing
In my fingertips, my shoulders.
My fingers have a hundred velcro loops,
Snagging one by one on delicate threads–
Staticky.
Dancing my fingers through the trails of my own unravelling.
Always liked to see my distant edges bleed into another’s.
Counting each breath,
Stringing out bits of my bursting lungs
To thread on the abacus macabre.

How much space is a body owed?
Where is the black market
That will take my pound of flesh
So that someone else may be beautiful
And I may sit right in my own skin?