Levi J. Mericle

Her whiskey knees
were always too drunk to hold up her body.

Her palms were a flight risk
jumping in surrender whenever she felt captured,

felt insecure.

Her elbows were never pointing to shadows that didn’t exist
but just to the ones no one claims.

Her shoulder blades sharper than the tongues of serpents
easily colder than any iceberg you could imagine,
slabbed in the middle of her back like the titanic awaiting to plummet.

I always hoped and believed she’d acquire normalcy.

But to her being normal was too underrated for her understanding.
She believed she was a nobody’s nobody.

Just a slab of flesh living in a an earthly meat counter,
awaiting to be consumed inside the belly of time.

I hated to know her,
Because knowing her meant I cared way too much.

Knowing she was just a child gone wrong
and living in the skin,

of oblivion.

Was just too much for me to handle.