Isolation

i want to tell you where I am

and what i am

so that you may

find me and say

— I’m so happy to have made your acquaintance.

I have been searching for you.

a gutless void

a heart about to burst

a being alive to ephemeral glints

and quick enough to point them out

before they fade

into someone else’s dream

my skin, numb

an invisible shell

dense and heavy pink fluff

that gets stuffed inside the crevices and

cracks of others’ hearts

giving warmth

I want to breathe

deep breaths of life

of invigorating oxygenated air

so potent that blossoms bloom before their time

excited and trembling at the

sudden intoxication

my body feels woolly and muffled

like a mouth full of cotton

it covers every pore of my being

suffocating life force,

that which breeds creation

tell me where you would touch me if you found me here

how you would stroke my skin,

breathe breath across my back

to make me come alive

i’m gasping for air

wrapped in this fur of deceptive silence

a tight corset

of stifling conformity

you cannot see me tremble with life from beneath

how my skin ripples when he sits too close

how my spleen and liver undulate

squeezing toxins that signal him to leave

and find another seat

along with the other walking dead

i have no life to give you.

it’s trapped beneath an insular wall

yet still, all the

fetid decay outside

it permeates

these sleeping strangers

drugged and dead

like corpses all around

empty tin cans

wishing they were

shiny, useful, attractive, free

though sadly, depressed and hollow,

filling themselves with smoke and death.

it seeps from their pores

find me here.

show me what it is to thrive

I cannot locate the part of me

that knows

i am grieving.

a forest of unspeakable hope and beauty

feels scorched, black, dead

i cannot find a single ember

be that ember.

that shimmer

of hope

the light

of home

my home

with you

grass

earth

sunlight

a light breeze

breath

touch

your touch

weight

and the weightlessness

the aliveness

of this.

words: FMH

image: unknown