[skint knees collapsed]

skint knees collapsed
in a pile of legs
blood dripping
seeping through floorboards,
and in the next room is this girl
with dirty straw hair
[who didn't ask to be born]
you can still feel her fingernails
ripping
at your arms
and you look down
and there is blood
[everywhere]
and you look up
and wonder how it's possible
the ceiling could be so white
so innocent
so pure,
like snow on the face of some
fake postcard
flip back to the hotel room and
the half-packed bag on the
mint-pillowed bed and
there is a girl in the bathroom
[who didn't ask to die either]
but you've killed her with your
silences
squeezed the air right out of her
paper lungs and you look at your hands and wonder
how this blood.