the forest floor craters
the trickling maroon blood
from down my thigh.
a satin hue shines off my skin
against the quarts moonbeams.
my lips don't curve into a flaccid smile,
only parted,
a lonely wheeze squeezing from my
grey and cracked lungs.

my teeth are rotten, carved by the
willow trees and poplar bark,
and my tongue is dried,
crawling with pill bugs and fly families.

and Hades curled beside me,
with a bonfire musk and sunshine teeth.
fingers interlocked with my protruding
ribcage, stuttered broken
hymns; Polyhymnia couldn't
preach such sorrow.

He wove buttercups in my burnt hair
and kept my porcelain flesh polished.
scabbed arms cradled me for weeks
as my textured bones
soon shone
in the
fortnights
full moon.