That last spark in hell

     
All the light I can ever have    
is cradled behind my splintered ribs  
and the draft in here is terrible.    
     
I huddle around the    
bare flicker of a spark,    
dank hair tangled like    
memory weeds    
while futile salt      
streams through the    
furrows in my cheeks   
     
…the spark quivers.    
     
that first unwelcome    
brush of a finger,      
the fucking reason for      
every minute of my cursed life,  
and they don’t make bleach    
strong enough      
to wash out    
the click of the      
bedroom door,    
or the spindly      
ways the shadows      
dance against    
the pale yellow walls    
   
There were sailboats on the blanket…    
     
There’s no fire kit    
for the damned;    
hell is cold,    
and the suffering is ugly    
so you hold your hands    
close and keep what you have    
   
I fucked, and I fought    
and drank, and fucked,    
and I journaled, and      
treated the world with the      
untroubled pomposity      
of the truly broken    
as I raged and railed    
and staged the grandest      
fucking show you’ve ever seen    
     
And I am amazing on the stage.    
I really am.    
     
Because      
you can’t do anything      
to me that I don’t allow,    
you can’t have anything that’s mine    
You will      
Not    
Hurt    
Me    
     
And I’ll never fail again.    
     
Because I failed somehow    
when my snow-white skin was    
licked with someone else’s filth    
I fucking failed in a way      
that screams in my sleep    
under a pillow    
with motherfucking    
sailboats on it    
     
(I never really    
left that room.)    
     
Exhale slow to keep      
the flicker there.    
If I breathe too easy    
if I breathe too deeply    
     
I could lose it.    
     
All the light I can ever have    
is cradled in this broken chest    
and the draft in here is terrible.    
     
If I moved my hand the slightest      
I’d lose what they left me.    
And it’s so very little.    
     
So I hold my breath.    
I don’t look in mirrors.      
I hear the nightmare shift      
     
and if I could let go for      
a moment      
     
if I could let go    
and exhale…    
     
But the draft      
requires I keep      
both hands      
clenched at      
my chest.    
     
Leaving me    
nothing real    
to reach out    
with