We Bore Rats

We, born rats,

ran together between the gutters.

We bore rats

from the crannies between our guts.

Children born from a rabbit head

share not the blood of our brethren.

The others formed from feathers

know not joy or the sewer smell.

And ignored we spawn, still biting,

cognizant of the charred stars.

For the day we choose to drown the wards,

see our names written, signed upon their walls.

Their castles.

As we inherit all they've marred.

End of Night

I call for you

in the end of night.

When the oceans blur and animals cry.

Singing seaside songs you cannot avoid,

for they cradle and feed

the call of the void.

And I step to you; 1, 2, 3

swish, swirl, and swivel

towards that which you can't un-see.

For a ship-wreck embrace, I set free
three shutters of lightning
 into the sea.

Resurgent, reviving, the creatures below
crawl from the ocean,
your body in tow.

I call for you

nearing night's end.

When we sunk down deep, here, let's pretend.

Twin Scissors, Sister Blades

Mommy bore not one,

but two young baby blades.

Born were the scissor sisters,

After childbirth's cutting pains.

Right and soft and fierce,

Left and sharp and fast.

Sharp pairs of silver eyes,

and even sharper silver tongues.

Singing to the moonlight,

voices unsheathing, shrill the song.

They sang of the sea and swordfish,

and the taste of men's heart and bone.

Daddy raised not one,

but two young and dear cut-throats.

Rather than bonding scissors,

he forged each for their own.

From within the smithery,

a clanking clinking sound.

And out the fire-ate twin scissors,

paired blades drew he right out.

The Space Between My Vertebrae

My heart peeks through the crevices between my bones.

In this space between my vertebrae I've found where it belongs.

Who does the midnight bell toll for, I know it is not for me.

And I watch her ring from my window, to and fro and fro to thee.

And I kiss her in my mind,

fed up with the incessant cestrum night.

And I wonder if she would call for me,

If I climbed up the bell tower and wrung it free.

And as it calls it shakes my bones,

palpitating upon the glass church domes.

Glass Shoes

Your glass shoes reflect the light,

and they won't hold your body all through the night.

A nighttime's not ending any time soon,

they click and clack and call for the moon.

As you dance the shards push back your skin,

searching for the bones that hold you within.

You swish and glide and dive so steep,

but I still won't let you go to sleep.

The Snail

The vagrant dreams of going home.

He wants a place to call his own.

"A place where I can stay, where I belong."

You can always come back here,

but you know you can't stay forever.

They always told you you'd have to leave,

But you never knew what those words would sever.

"It is not easy to accept these transient times,

where I don't own anything inside my life."

A vagrant of privilege suddenly realizes,

that nothing was ever his, lies of gifts and prizes.

The vagrant's shell is a lease,

and he owns no agency over his insides.

Once you settle in your home, at last,

arrives the moment in which you're due to part.

From all I've been given I own nothing,

nothing except maybe the skin on my back.

Something.

Sirius

I hold you upon the descent of November,

a rapid candle-melting flame, come December.

We are lain upon snow which still refuses to fall,

I still refuse to wake and sleep you still attempt to stall.

Refusing to wake up and to go to bed,

a cycle repeating when sun refused to set.

Our feet now frozen past the point to ever melt.

We lie under a snowfall which time before had never dealt.

You sing and hear the creak of straw,

play music on the heart you still refuse to thaw.

Before the ending dawns, I use my frozen throat to crow

lullabies to you, from back when time still did not flow.