there was a time,

when you said my skin’s mottled quilt

of blues and greens

were like butterfly kisses.

and i believed you.

there was a time,

when you immured my lungs

in cement breath. when your stained finger

outlined me in black. when molten light

dripped from your eyeballs

onto my tongue

and you convinced me that

smoke would taste just as good.

there was a time,

when suffocation became recreation.

when I was a moth-eaten silhouette

breathing pixelated

delusion. when i locked myself in my own

personal gas chamber

and spit up ash

like vomit.

there was a time,

when my armpits sweat out spinal fluid

and i sheathed it

in aerosol and pollution and pretended

that my brain hadn’t wilted. and that

the letters of my name

weren’t slurred into bruised

coma. that my blue tongue

wasn’t slit down the middle and that

my lungs’ soft hum hadn’t broken into

asthmatic convulsions.

there was a time.

when you brushed your wet finger

along my outline,

and erased me

while I wasn’t looking.

stained-glass-see-through:

will you still kiss me

when my lips have blown away?

there was a time, when it hurt to live.

it still hurts, sometimes.