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Et in Arcadia ego

Smoke crawls into lungs,

Veins light up

In ultraviolet dread.

The candle flame

Is weeping backwards;

This is not a vision,

This is a place.

The silence here—

Tastes like blood,

My mouth is numb.

I forgot my body

Three altars ago.

My skin

Is a borrowed pattern.


She stands

At the edge of my skull,


Wrapped in insects

And broken commandments.


I speak,

In vowels that split my tongue.


They do not understand,

And so they sing louder.

There is no return.


Only the memory

Of an exit,


Repeating,


Wrong.