Return to the scene that you thought you’d left
look down as though you lay eagle spread
back wrenched against the familiar ceiling
float by invisible metal wires like
the angel wings they’ll tell your cousins
you’re wearing now and that you’re happy.

Yesterday you watched a moth flit and swirl
through the open window and across the room
furred cream wings fluttered as it reached
the source of light, next best thing to human desire.
Twitched, burning like a ballet dancer at the final death
convulsing like a epileptic fit for an encore
then fell, wings singed and blackened to the floor.

You were brushing your teeth at the time
and paused for half a second,  Medusa struck-
riveted to the final moments of a fatal dance.
It made you wonder all over again
just how much it would hurt to reach the moment
the final moment of clarity before your blood stills
and you’re finally gone.

Reverse to a month ago, when you last thought to try
you had the blades lined up across the sink
shining like coins in the bottom of a wishing well
to try your luck with each though you knew
(secretly, inside you) that a single one would be necessary.

You thought they were out, that they wouldn’t return
until eight or nine when the nightingale would sing
in the novels you imagined yourself to be an extra in
when you were young and thought that
if you dreamt your wish enough it could be true.
Clomp-flop-creak-flop shocked you from
the sparkles by the greasy soap dish and
the requiem to reason in your mind’s eye.

All that was left to do was wait
for another day, another silent time for poetry
and the shrieks of song you used to engrave
on your arms and thighs and hands and ankles.
You’d have rather been a fool than a poet anyway
except today. The pain was more than you
ever imagined, before the feeling melted like rain clouds
and the blackness grew and sank again
as you found your eyes ripped out of their velvet caves
and staring at yourself like a murder scene Polaroid.