If I turn my head and gaze past my shoulder
If I lightly open my mouth and exhale a great sigh
I would be the perfect mechanical figure
To represent what a human body should be
With gears running through me
With cogs and levers for easy adjustment
But only for those who know how to manipulate them
My steel heart painted with peeling loneliness
And the cogs grinding in my chest, just a bit too close, just a bit too tight while you’re gone
The metal beneath the plaster of my skin slowly caving in
I’m scratching at the wrinkling paper protecting layers of exposure
My very delicate machinery
Everything keeps falling in
Yet I’m still out because my arms are not designed for repairs
My mechanic is a secret
A delicate secret tucked so far away
Sometimes a little oil just isn’t enough
I need an adjustment
My mind has frozen solid
The cool metal of my skull is contracting, squeezing my brain until I cry out
My head pounds against the plaster
And I’m crumbling, crumbling, crumbling all around
I hug my knees to my chest to stop the peeling, the bleeding, the pain and try to cry
The pain is too deep, too constricting
nothing comes out.
I want is to sleep to avoid this feeling of disintegrating, falling, breaking
The only answer, the only hope, is to wait
Sit here and wait until I am whole enough to walk on child like clumsy feet
To the other side of the world I’ll go, hand in hand with my love, stretching my metal slowly growing skin, growing soft
Step by step I’ll pull my heart out from under my bed and admit I am a human of glass
and skin, easy to shatter but warm to hold
I’ll be nestled by his side and free from this cold, old, crumbling heart in my chest
He’ll take it in his hands and press it into the hole in his chest
Crushing the last few pieces to dust
Leaving me with nothing
No innocence to hold
Just pain crushing my bones
