i folded you in half at your spine
and pushed you as far as i could into the coals.
now you're back again with ashes in your eyes
and your skin full of holes.
i should have wrapped you in gasoline
and scattered you over Hell's half acre.
i'm not your tin soldier, and you're just another paper dancer.
fine print falls out of your mouth like broken bits of glass,
these ransom notes written in code are your latest fashion,
and i want nothing from you.
she sells 9mm shells by the seashore,
says she can hear the ocean.
but if you listen close to these shells
you can hear ghosts.
something borrowed, something blue,
something broken, something bruised.
she traces her fingers across the autopsy scars
while she counts her bones like currency.
she'll leave your skin screaming,
and sink into the whites of your eyes like a shipwreck.
can you hear the ocean?