And while I unravel

“Someday, you will ache like I ache.”

My wrists 

            are in stitches

I’m running

            out of skin 

//

I bought Courtney Love's diaries

secondhand at a Booksale

Kept a torn-out picture of Frances Bean

profiled in Harper's at age fifteen

dressed as Betty Rizzo from Grease between

the pages of my favorite part,

which I thought had said: 

            I can grow a new heart

But I should have been reading more carefully

//

I feel my body 

work to fix itself like 

always

            when all I want 

            to do is destroy it 

            completely

It stings

            and it stings 

//

Books, too, in slow decay

You hardly even notice

I picked one up this morning—

it had ghosts 

            (and a love story)

And, now, spores along

its lavender spine