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i know i now speak no real words; molten lava pours out between my jaws,
onto paper, burning these books you used to read to me to keep me interested
on those long nights, the same ones when i could not sleep,
and watched myself tug at my stretchy ruined skin like a diseased, starving infant.

and there were so many bugs around summer time, not sure if you remember this,
they were crawling in and out, one ear through the other on your pretty head.
it was you who knew me best, and knew that i hated the sound of those critters, hated the feeling of their legs digging into the pores of my flesh,
so you took a razor and cut me open so they could crawl all over my insides.

and then once or twice i told you i wished the sky was red,
to match these red hands i have from choking my sister.
weeks later, maybe months after her funeral it got cold very suddenly and we shook and shivered and shook under a blanket which turned out to be the softest snow i'd ever tasted,
even until today.

too many ghost live on this mountain, hey? - they constantly whisper something that is not my name.
when i told you that one of them was tugging at my leg one september, you laughed, very very sharply,
kissed it away like a wish, as you murmured those sentences from books (same ones i burned later), until the moon rose and sun fell into my eyes,
as deep as lakes,
as far from you as tunnels into the centre of the earth.