greenhouse girl
nerves of glass
splintered in my body
reaching outwards
to make feral contact
with their perpetrator
they cut me as they pass
bleeding from the inside out
i have been this before
i have known the exquisite pain
from too much love
too much world
weighed down upon me
until I become immovable
but I have ripped it off
stripped layers
from me so I can look
steadily out again
from vestibules of fleshy trauma
terror a withheld snipper
my wet womb wood
grows in celebration
of this fresh hell’s paradise
crystalline upon the floor
the loss is something awful
(i catch a laugh
run hot along my windpipes
before I cry glass tears
radiant your skeleton shimmers
a beggar’s wink in servitude)
- by Lydia Jane Bennett
England
