STRΛDIE You Don't Remember a Future

I was born inside the fold of someone else’s suicide note
The ink still wet, still warm, still pretending it could vote
My cradle was the space between two screams that never met
And every lullaby arrived already soaked in debt

The mirrors voted unanimously to dissolve
They said my face was just bad special effects
And love — just collagen gone wrong
A meat balloon attempting self-respect

You don’t remember a future
Because futures don’t survive the smell
Of meat left thinking in the dark too long
You don’t remember a future
And neither do the dolls
Whose porcelain skulls still echo with the song

Last night my reflection filed for custody of my skeleton
Claimed I’d been renting it without permission since ’97
The judge was a wet towel draped over yesterday’s chair
He sentenced me to smile until the enamel turns prayer


There are rooms inside me where gravity gave up smoking
And the wallpaper peels itself in slow ecstatic strips
I keep finding fingers that aren’t mine
Tucked behind the radiator like love letters from a corpse
They smell like hospitals that never existed
And sound like apologies bees would write if they could weep

You don’t remember a future
Because remembering is just violence
Done at 1/1000th of the original speed
You don’t remember a future
And the puppets applaud whenever I bleed

So cut the thread.
Let the marionette spine uncoil like wet black ribbon
There never was a birthday
Only the cake continuing to rot
While everyone politely claps
For the shape the decay has learned to take

Fade out on soft chewing sounds
That might be me
Or might be tomorrow
Practicing its own obituary