Adulthood

by Jasmine Lunia

You have given everything and taken everything.

A black cat cowers in the corner,

afraid of the light,

that the sunbeams will cause flesh to become translucent,

that each photon will expose the inner workings of

genius, madness, human complexity;

it fears what it might see.

I see spiders crawl over the wall,

I feel each leg penetrate my pores,

hydrated only by the remnants of my body

dripping down severed palm.

An adolescence unfinished-

covered only by lace bralettes,

cigarette smoke clouding fear,

pills, lavender, the duality of everything

again and again and again,

a broken clock, a machine,

a piece of skull jutting into malleable brain.

You drive it further and further

until cortex crumbles like tofu on my plate,

fluid drips through nostril down cupid’s bow

but no willpower stops it.

You don’t see that you are killing me,

you don’t see that I am killing me.

An adulthood unlived-

red wine, soup on a sick day,

paid bills, content, the promise of biology,

I have taken everything from myself.