I am whatever the broken clock tower chimes at midnight,
adept at catching shards of glass between my fingertips
but not so much at getting them out.
He is a boy who likes that empty stomach feeling
and the cicada buzz it leaves.
She is the second girl I’ve met who’s all skin and bones,
who digs her nails into her wrists
because she’s found that mouths run far thicker than blood.
You are a punched out screen door window
inside the body of a boy who’s scared that everyone will leave him.
I am a seamstress sewing roses through my backbone
so that something painful can be beautiful for a change.
He is a boy who wishes he could drink a little more
and cry a little less,
but his liver’s rather small and his heart is rather broken.
She’s a mountain of shaking limbs
thinking of shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.
And you are a blinding of the lights
hiding behind the overused phrase “I’m tired”.