185.

touching the mirror like trying to pour honey all
down my shorn hair, my shoulder freckles
like trying to tell myself
you can breathe you can breathe you can breathe
but here it is cold and it is thin and I am knees-buckled and panting

here the sky is dish rag yellow, the trees too quiet
a cruel breeze bites my ankles and I am trying
to tell myself
you are safe you are safe you are safe
trying to drown myself in all the love I can find in my fingers
while my knuckles split

no one warned me I would only ever be half-sane
and now I can't get past this cracking vision, still surprised
every time my face falls sickly slow toward the bog at my feet
never fully standing straight, never standing for long

and all I can do is try to muster every inch of gold
spun in my teeth and in my veins, try
to whip it into something drinkable
and to coax it down my throat and over my face
and to tell myself
you will survive you will survive you will survive
even on my deadest days