Bone Dust

Your skull shatters like dirt clumps
dried and bulging in the heat
bone dust, catching in my palms
wriggling under my nails
lying dormant in the ridges of my throat

Cough with substance
the deep bellow torn from the chest
ripped from the base of the throat
and dropped in the corners of your limbs
bone dust, eating through my thoughts like maggots

By the end we're all innocent as babies

Here's the pick axe
the sandpaper
let's weather this bone until it turns to clay
bone dust, just add moisture

We morph the reflections of ourselves
meet somewhere in between the curve of our eyelids
and infinity
drill our chests open with jackhammers
and curl our tongues around what we think are secrets
those shallow chambers in the beating fist of our heart

But secrets are in the vibration of arteries
cool and smooth as frozen crow bars
they crack like fish scales between your teeth
scrape your gums like knives
Grind them, to bone dust

In the end we all die trapped in fisherman's nets

We rip out our nails with our teeth
run our palms over gravel
pound our knuckles against salt
and press swollen lips to our bloody thumbs saying,
Who fuckin' needs hands anyway?

So peel off your skin like unfolding petals
pluck your veins and arteries like ribbon
and stare at the beauty that bleeds far beyond skin deep

For a moment, we are pulsing, striding skeletons
before we blow silently away

After the end, we're all just
bone dust