teenage primordial wasteland (lonely hope)

i.
kicking off the extra blanket,
i try to dissolve into a sea
of worlds-without-hearts.

i feel like a hearth
without wood, a symbol
of comfort left vacant
when the spark finally
consumed.

i twist the top sheet
around my shattered ankle,
wish it anchored me
to a crushing seafloor.

once, we were more
than a void.

ii.
fourteen felt a lot
simpler, sixteen near triumphant,
but eighteen stabs
through every interosseous possibility.

what does it even mean
to be me?

iii.
fold the extra blanket, set it
at the foot of the bed,
smooth it out, sit down
cross-legged on the floor.

look around, feel surrounded
by the past. how did i
become this
differentjadedhopelesstireddangerous?

want to burn it all
down, stand in ashes,
raptor stance as i'm
reborn.

i just want
to know my form.

iv.
nineteen catches in my
forearm, barbed and vicious,
tearing.

i have never wept
like this, never been the
victim, never drowned
in the sea of worlds-without-hearts.

what does it even mean
to breathe?

v.
sleep atop a worn blanket,
it is not warm here.
there are three bracelets,
two hair ties,
and the chains of hephaestus
digging into my wrists.

i cannot stand
myself.

vi.
twenty-one deities
snake through and command
my nervous system.

i name some of them,
lovingly.

aion,
you belligerent fuck i swear you've let me down
more times than either of us can count and the
horrible rupturing truth of it is that we are
doomed to dance together forever, i watch you trip
me and stab me and smile at the familiarity.
i have never hated anything more than you,
i'd devour you if you'd
stand still.
erebus,
you hold me so softly
i cannot tell you are there
most times, but when i recognize
your death's head embrace
i sleep like styx is flooding
my bedroom. you are peace to me,
i hide pieces of me in you,
i am pleased with you,
most times.
chaos,
you are my chosen one.
at times i believe i must
be you, in some weakened form.
i think you would love me,
see your reflection in
my desperate photographs,
feel yourself in the scars
on my body,
cry with me.
chaos, darling, i love you
and believe in only you.
absorb me,
i need
to be nothing.
thanatos,
not you. never you.

vii.
i see i am blank,
slate-grey and waiting to
begin.

i am nothing and
everything again,
and again,
and again.

i do not dissolve,
i do not expire,
i will breathe
again.

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