my kidney decays like a sickly newborn & 

mama says it’s Premature Decomposition; 

sounds like a lover i’ve finally met, 

trodding away on a cracked rib cage, 

pupils melting beneath sticky eyelids. 

she’s curled her skin all pretty like 

a honey brown marilyn monroe; 

tell me you never wanted to live; 

we can never get old, my love. 

but no one knows she cowered 

beneath those sobbing boys 

on the 4th (fire melting the sky) 

& stared at the bullet holes 

in their bones then broke down. 

death’s holler shatters her so 

the storm inside her sings soft. 

& my lover loves waltzing. 

backyard jazz concerts 

ignite her shallow throat 

& she’ll sing broken lullabies, 

cradling her beaten baby. 

​

; 

 

my kidney aches like a drum 

& eyelids shutter open. 

 

; 

 

i rename her: 

Zora. 

 

; 

 

Zora is a muddy Nile 

cloaked in sparkling sea foam 

& crackling fish ossein. 

she lays my innards

in a bursting sea. see: 

i am dying afloat. 

 

; 

 

dying dying dying 

 

; 

 

the science of Zora’s heartbeat: 

a vulture’s carcass painted with spit & daisy petals. chewing on urvogel bones, she breathes my drumming. 

 

; 

 

Zora envelopes me in bare limbs & mama snaps her own tendons. 

 

; 

 

dying dying dying. 

we sip marrow & dance