mea culpa, she breathes, and the droplets burn, the rivers boiling
as they run down her face, to her chin, gathering and blossoming
and sinking into her skin to stain it carmine for as long as she continues
to live. mea culpa, said again and again, somewhere between a curse
and a prayer and a cry for help, rolling off her tongue like a waterfall,
fitting into the space behind her teeth like it belongs there. dead
words from a dead language, which is fitting, since everyday draws
her a little closer to the precipice between living and dying, every moment
pushing her closer to the edge while life slowly rots and drains from her
body. every day aches, saps at her strength.
mea culpa, again, and it’s a mantra now, it’s something that runs through
her head every single moment of every single day, it’s her own personal
motto that lives in her blood and her flesh and every molecule of her body -
the spaces between atoms, the gaps between every cell. every inch, centimetre,
millimetre, every single speck of skin on her body corrodes, fades away, decays
and falls to the floor like dust, like debris, somewhere between long strips tearing
themselves away as blood drips from the gouges in her flesh and tiny spots of it
falling like snow, almost.
she feels hollow, but that isn’t new, death residing within her ribcage and clawing
at the pale bone, almost piercing skin, almost breaking through and taking her
life with the thick shroud that tears at the edges, crumbles, leaves her skin tarred
and coated with charcoal. smoke stains and the smell seeps into pores and
follicles and people say, when they look at her, you smell like a campfire, and
assume that the fibres of her clothes are the trap for the scent so all she does
is laugh it off and say camping problems as though any part of this is a joke.
her fingers are made of embers and her skin smeared with ash with every touch.
