by Margaret Iuni
If I hide in your closet next to the skeletons you keep there, staying still and quiet and alone,
If I’m so eager to hear the rumored truth that I wait for hours listening for the worst,
If when you speak I finally hear those shattering words,
It won’t matter
Because my decomposition will have begun long before.
You have been under my skin for seemingly centuries,
In my hair for just as long,
On my mind for weeks if not months,
Only recently held in my heart, but still.
When the acid in your words finally drips into my veins,
Your paralyzing venom the worst kind of IV,
My lungs will burn while they dissolve,
My tears won’t come before my eyes have bled,
And by the time you find me
I’ll just be another skeleton in your closet
Unrecognizably yours.
