Text

artist with
your pale
fragile hands
painting the
world black
with your pen
opening the sky
with your
words

the words march
up and down
the page
flowing like cool
water from your
pen

spending nights
hunched over the
keyboard
throwing out
poems and
short stories
they are all alike

it is the eyes
that you have to
watch
that dazed look
when the world
shrinks down into
a pin head and
breaks the skin
with its teeth

then blood
an inky red
floods out of the
pen and forms
words of hate
and frustration

the artist
paints on her skin
carefully
drawing words
and shapes
and liquid hate
with her blade
carefully
licking away the
blood with her
moist tongue

the artist
starves as
do all the others
making sure
that breakfast
only had 100
calories
enough for a whole
day of slaving
over her easel

white and pink
lines decorate
the artist's
skeletal frame
why do we have
to wait in line
to be told that
there is no
help here and
that everyone has
gone home?

at night the artist's
lover kisses
those pink and white
scars and pretends
she doesn't know
why they are there

the words
trail off the tongue
and the rest lay
furry and thick in
her throat
she cannot sing
them out
they are trapped
in her mind's eye

looking for skin
unbroken by her
silver pen

god, can i have a
new canvas?