Rhythm
Beat-beat-beat-beat
Heart
Beat-beat-beat-beat
Have been thinking
Turning it over
In my mind.
The outside
Covering.
Soft and permeable
No use
In this harsh world
I cut myself
Bleed.
Drip-drip-drip-drip
Like a dodgy
Tap-drip-drip-drip
To prove my point
I want to-I
have made the word
up-‘exo-skelete’!
To go from this
Soft outer coating
To something
Armoured
To bury my pulse
Beneath a heavy
framework
My pulse
Dot-dot-dot-dot
You are questioning
my idea
dot-dot-dot-dot
Sat in my chair
this afternoon
I thought my bones
outwards
I expanded them
I thought them out
in fragments
Out-out-out-out
Through the pores of my skin
Out-out-out-out
Armour, body armour
On the outside
And now I sit here
Enthroned
Resplendent
Complete
An ivory tower
A tower of bone
A hardness
Worn on the outside
I wake from dubious
slumber
Assured of who I am
What I am
I stand to shout
But
Crackcrackcrackcrack
My bones are brittle
Old
It is not how I thought
It would be
I am a seething mass of blood and organs on the floor
The dog comes and licks me away
The rug is stained forever
And I am gone
Gone-gone-gone-gone
A Tuesday Latte 