Sixteenth Love Is Gone

blue-skinned, sea-changed, you come into
the place you dreamt it all began, the
briny palace in the deeps, home of everything
you
have long
forgotten

where did you leave your heart? you found
an empty birdcage in your chest, your head
all stuffed with sawdust & glass, your eyes
missing like
the pearls you once
had in your
pockets

you’ve grown so cold as stone, your laughter
unchained but dormant, comatose, like
the wintry blood that sludges through
your veins

so sad that
you cannot
feel the feeling pulsing through the world
around you, rushing & washing as
tempests out of teapots, you once
felt all of this, but
now you’re like a
dead thing, still
as a doll
on your
bed

good night
sleep tight
don’t you dare wake up