tw: self harm, suicide
goosebumps rise up on my skin
when I trace the names i’ve drawn
(carved) with shards of the mirror
(my soul) on the swell of my hips.
my lovers say my hips were (are)
too wide and too burdensome to be
caressed by their meagre hand spans.
so I relieve them of this burden and
instead wear their names in fancy
calligraphy in a corset around my hips
that chokes me each time I think of them.
today, my corset is a shade of
carmine (carve mine); is it because I
added my name to the list yesterday?
my mind tells me the world is red (dead);
red, like the fluid coating my quivering
fingers that colors my skin when i trace
the names i’ve drawn (carved) on my hips;
red, like the stains on the shards of the
mirror (my soul) after they consume
this fluid like Van Gogh’s yellow paint;
red, like the color of the silent cries
echoing from my sunken eyeballs that
drench my placcid skin in shades of
dyed (dead) hues (emotions) everyday.
red, like the crimson orbs of death that
stare at me through the mirror (my soul)
and drag me to the pits of darkness and
lock my mind in chilling cages of despair.
red, like the glimmering phosphenes
that fill (kill) the world in a bloodbath,
and make draw (carve) smiles on my hips,
till every drop of red (dead) in me,
flows out with my last breath.
aishvarya 