CW: Body horror

barely remembers eight

small scrubbed shining thing split-

kneed and blundering teeth nudged

crossways by growing

is cicada tearing

wetwinged precarious

from sixteen/seventeen

shellful of soup thoughts

rearranged into human

blind to twenty heart collapsing

tiger trapped with demons

kissing hope’s sulfur throat with fangs

drowning silence

cannot know how twenty-five

comes close to unmaking

sleeps as twenty-eight plucks

thorns from soles leaves 

from hair scales

from eyes burning

bridges and building barricades

to keep them from ownself

blowing everything down

misses the tenderness of thirty

one red raw flinching iridescent

with pain pride rage fear

bubbling sugarglass hearts

will not know just how

thirty eight will miss them