The poem begins with a man tucking his daugher in bed. Eventually, he becomes more and more insane and eventually kills her. 

Chapter 1: We're All Broken Together

While laying on the belly of the beast,
                                                the covers roll beneath you
      crawling across this mattress, an undulating sea in wrinkled bed sheets,           
     you find yourself listening to the metronome beat of its heart.
Feel your body curve into its palm
               the cushion of its flesh
    and shut your eyes gently; eyelashes clasping like tightening jaws, welcoming darkness

     Imagine yourself as a crescent moon;                   that muted yellow   smile
hanging 
             in  the sky
    and listen carefully to the mellifluous tune of my sullen lullaby
Tuck away your nightmares
        in the folds of your brain
because  darkness will come to grace us 
                                                            it will take away the pain
                                                                 once we’ve tasted broken glass
and celebrated our Last Supper
           

         take our bodies
                                 turn them to blood              this crimson for their
                       consumption
drink my disease and corruption

When you close your eyes, what do you see?
Urgency dots the black  of closed eyelids with
           the twinkling bodies that are projected across the night sky
       those tiny fairy lamps
                who promise

to breathe life into your dreams
                                                      
But a candle cannot burn without a flame

                   Don’t worry, child, they don’t know your name—only numbers
where syllables should be
Dance with me across our dust and debris
across the papers the bills the letter from the IRS  the money
       set fire to that which you can hold
               
and decorate your fingertips with its cinders
This is what being alive feels like
we are bringing all of the pieces together and tearing them carefully apart.
watch them reduce to ashes

  show our fingers cracking the ice cold glass mirrors that reflect our
past
      when we were just smiling faces,
we should tell them that the moments are gone now

   frozen in that staged bliss

Child, we are being torn apart from the inside out
walls; pale        rigid          clean
are only ghosts staring back at me

Close your eyes now, darling, and listen       and listen
It’s nice to hear the cymbals crashing with the strain
of my arm, contact reaction
the weary sound of a drum
the steady pace of our heartbeats
Honey, this is our heartbeat booming all around us
you can hear love this way
tell your mom to please be quiet so she can listen to our heartbeat
this is what love sounds like
   I am going to break more mirrors.
The sound of a mallet kissing a mirror
sounds like crashing waves
           don’t worry, it’ll fade into white noise
I won’t hold your hand because it needs to be breaking something
       we only have a few hours left

Don’t you see, honey, that this is all paper and that one day all we’ll be able
to do
      is burn

         Do you remember what cold feels like?
How its long fingers comb through your hair
when it digs its nails into your skin in attempts to get hold of your hand
trying with all its power to absorb your warmth
to get its grip on your bones
and bathe in your blood
  The cold freezes
it burns
it leaves its red marks on the body
        on the soul
turning its bile into a dull blade attempting to weather an indent into your skin
a cut   to draw blood
    I have suffered a great casualty to the mind
      to the soul
                       where dullness fills the puncture wound in my heart
moved in like an uncomfortable stranger
                                        stuck in a state of luke-warm
    
In my nightmares I am in a tub full of this water
I can feel its cold creeping up my neck
it’s so still     it’s wrapped around me     if I listen hard enough I can
hear it breathing
or maybe it’s just my lungs, inflating and deflating
the red balloon in my chest
  my heart beating
    the mallet congratulating the TV with a crash
everything that comes together will eventually fall apart
  Honey, we’re being torn apart.

It’s not just a physical release of the pressure on our minds
we’ve been reduced to numbers
to our jobs
to our activities
I know it hurts
       I felt it too
    the sting from our bodies
               once whole
   being reduced to ashes
all we’re doing is turning corners and tripping over untied shoelaces
       our teeth           white            and             bleeding
you’re shaking now, Dear,        and with those teeth hanging out of your mouth by their thread
          we are illuminated by starlight
only bags of skin and blood and bones
                                  huddling on our foam coach; cracks       like veins       are spread beneath us
   they are small canyons sent to divide us

For now, honey, I’ll hold your hand
       a bridge between our earth's
and mom will stroke your hair
       

like the cold

   welcoming us into oblivion.