I See Through Your Eyes

Hushed cries seep under the doors and through the walls in the ward,
as souls slip into a slow decay.
I don't belong here, wandering these halls.
The sick drift like lost ghosts with limp hands outstretched,
searching for meaning in their charts
and the strange language of the nurses.
hospitals are just pretty morgues.

You used to make me smile, but there's nothing to smile about in here.
there's only sadness and a sorrow
that creeps into the shape of my bones.
I don't want to live like this.
I don't want to be alone.

There is nothing here.
voices whisper through the darkness for my name,
and I am powerless.
above myself, I float, and stare down into the emptiness,
watching the black holes move under my skin.
my bones feel small, and I slip away,
down into the roots that hold the earth to me.  

There's nothing to do, in all this silence, and I wear it so well.
I drink cold cups of tea, and speak above the static words of the other patients.
I eat plastic food with silver spoons and plastic forks,
and think of you as we try to fill the silence with a cutlery tango.
I want to slide the spoons into my head, to cradle the soft membranous flesh
and show them how perfect and alien we are.
and I cry for your voice and your safety,
and the welcoming arms of the ferryman
as he pulls deep across the river to the other side.

I paint sweet deaths into my wrists, and swallow my meds.
Quiet voices echo through me, into the ground,
and I fall into the mouth of God without an answer.
Endless nights move into my ribs, and I feel it in my lungs,
in the breathless prayers that come with the creep of dark.
Lips brush the nape of my neck, and soft eyelids fold me to them.
I see through your eyes.

They say shame comes in waves,
and horror bleeds you like the mouths of leeches.
I find horror in waking breath, transforming every touch, every sound.
you are the colourless place in my head,
the pulse that beats bruises into my mind.
baby you're my hummingbird vital signs,
you twist my limbs until they drip red.