(Shadow integration = Poetry Night)

What it’s Like to Die

I shut my eyes to see the room inside my head

where I collect fragile things:

One dried flower

a doll hung by the neck

And four vacant walls that whisper names of those I tucked deep into shadow.

It’s like a cemetery for the breathless forms that turn water to ice.

In the corner of a vacant window a spider web reaches forward

with one lonely thread, as if to rescue me by silk.

I scrape the red off a rose to make blood between my thighs

so I can feel what it’s like

to die.