Emaciation

There comes a point when words - even written, even so carefully selected - fail to speak, and language bites its tongue to stare dumbly at reality.
The syllables that were once tasted so delicately, chewed so thoroughly, are left steaming on the table to cool and, ultimately, to rot.
Nothing can be done to stop their decomposition. It is unavoidable, a tragedy really.
So many died for the sake of this meal and here we sit around the table, swaddled in our pretenses, with nothing save for blinking eyes and the steady din of breathing to attest to our mortalities.

This is the moment when you begin to speak to me.
This is the instant that I begin to feel you rattling around inside my ribcage.

My bones turn to ice and the heat of my flesh sets them to dripping, and before long I am liquid.
I am the wetness of your eyes, the rush of blood in your ears, the cold sweat on your neck.
I am in you and of you. My still-beating heart is the score of your existence.
It is so much steadier than you remember it being, and your movements fall in time.

Sit back down. Look at what has been set before you.
Pick up a word, a sentence, a poem, and place it under your tongue.
Let it dissolve.

It is tasteless, but it is efficacious.
Two, three, five seconds have passed and you are horizontal.
Your eyes are still open. Your body convulses, your fingers twitch.
The muscles recall how to hold onto life, but the spirit does not.

Once again, the words have brought you back to me.
And if we have swallowed them all, well -
at least we will starve together.

O, Cyanide

O, lay me in the ground too soon
with copper pennies on my eyes.

Pour ashes in a silver spoon,
and feed me all my alibis -

half cyanide, half clever lies,
all peppered with unsaid goodbyes

for those who were, it seemed,
immune.