The Waiting Sirens

[Katrina Gray]

It gets undeniably hard to breathe. I poke holes in my skin. Open the
windows. There is light everywhere, but it only serves to cast shadows.
My hands crack like plaster and I know what it's like to just want to
die, to want it all to stop, to want silence -- even if that silence
means nothing(, nothing, nothing, nothing,) forever. Sometimes there's
top soil in my ears, worms in my soul. I think I was born this way. I
think I was destined for it. I fall apart like a tender meat.

It's in my bones. This dark blue, this ocean waiting to crest and break
and drag me under. Drown me. And as I listen to the dull seconds tick
by, I write tiny poems about my skull being made of crushed seashells
and dried up starfish. Who would've thought that this would be my life? You're
an artist, kid. Run with your pain. Wallow in it. Tilt your face up to
it. Let it kiss your eyelids shut. Pray they never open again, at least
not in the presence of another, and especially not in the presence of a
mirror.

The ceiling fan sings its symphony at night while I try to sleep.
Outside the livingroom window I look at the patterns left by gaps in
between the leaves, watch the moon and its inconsistent glory. I feel
everything, and God, how clear I feel it. All the time. I feel it so
loudly that I grow deaf to it. And underneath my collarbone, in my
chest, there is... a place that will never be filled -- has never been
filled. And as I exhale, I hear the waiting sirens with their alabaster
demise.

Their slender arms are open, reaching, and oh, how they've been
waiting for a creature like me.