Collapse. by Rose Pleuler

Collapse.
by Rose Pleuler

Sorry I left that pile of dust in the bath tub,

but this sort of thing comes on with very little warning.

Under the splinters of a hot shower on a morning

so cold that my hands were bruised a dull purple,

I could feel bits of me

harden like a clay shell beneath the heat

and begin tighten and tighten on me

as it dried, until even the slight twitch of my wrist

caused tearing up the seams of my body,

making way for deeper cracks

that echoed redness

and sectioned my skin off into sharp platelets

that scraped against each other,

each section a piece to an ancient mechanism

that produced the same metal shards,

sliding into dry piles on the cold porcelain,

that you left in a clump at the back of my throat.

The metal taste in my mouth was getting strong,

and I'm sorry for when I say

I would rather be hardened, tightened, dried, torn, cracked, and scraped,

than have you

repair me.