“now let’s see what he can do with a tacktickle twelve gauge” - Eric Turner

i want you to crack my sternum,

with your hands, with your knife,

with your tongue, with your hammer.

i want to hear it snap like ice sheets,

feel it rip like composition diary entries.

lines for you to cut along, tear here, iron perforated,

i can give directions if you can keep me awake.

keep me awake.

look into my eyes while you do it,

bloody hands and a death row smile,

put your fingers on my lips like drags,

let me taste the blood with your mouth,

show me what this is like for you.

i am the soul the reaper hasn’t sown,

a ghost in a body that isn’t mine.

i haunt my bedroom, yours one day,

rattle my chains in coffee shops.

i have died the kind of death they forage for,

decay found on tongues in spores and tablets,

rotted in dark like closeeyed new moon stares,

been killed in every room of every house i lived in.

my soul feels like heartbeat flutters

but my body feels like .

i am gone from life like memories.

bring me back.

breathe my lungs.

fill my stomach.

beat my heart.

spit in my mouth like formaldehyde.

kiss me like infection.

hug me like peroxide.

fuck my eyes black.

love my lips raw.

make me feel something again.

i dare you. i dare you. i dare you.