You smiled across the table
leaned your elbows on the sticky ghost rings of the pint glasses half drunk
and said
‘Don’t ever change.’

and I laughed like it was a compliment
like you could see past my eyes
reflecting sunny skies back at you
and see some blue patch of cloudless brilliance worth capturing
holding me like a moth in a glass jar
like a child unaware that even insects need air

You said you saw me, a green and glowing grub
wriggling along
fat on lies I told myself
chewing the cud, lips smacking
packing in all the leafy misery I could
and maybe you said
‘You’re beautiful’
and I thought, ‘I know’
but didn’t say a word
because confidence would scare you
like big wings
like owl eyes
because my soft bristly hairs would sting you
if you ever dared to stroke them
My spiny back would rub your chapped lips to crack
and spill all the shiny secrets you had carefully collected in your toy plastic bucket

I left early, home to bed
Hid away in that cocoon, folded myself inside out
softly melting away, shredding myself down to a nub
rubbing at the the prickling sensation in my spine until I began to unwind like a piece of string unravelling off my spool
out of my mind
grinding my teeth down to soft meadows
gnashing my toothless gums ruefully
at the broken parts of me I had once folded gently
into bubble wrapped boxes and taped up
Tucked away safe from dust and decay
precious heirlooms once but now they sift away through fingers growing thinner
skin turned translucent
and I wonder who will love me when I am just a bag of blue veins dripping stains on the carpet

A crack of light shines through the bottom of my curtain blind
bright painful brilliance fighting with the comforter
I wrap my face in that pillowy shroud
breathing in a warm cloud of darkness
wriggling not enough or too many limbs

As the sun begins to sink I stretch
and emerge wet-winged, bow-legged
wide eyes blinking dumbly
and shake myself like a dog
breaking spiders thread webbed between my toes
doughy muscles and bones creaking from misuse
I go to speak but feel a flutter in my guts
a buzzing humming thrumming in my throat
a floating sensation
and find myself inexplicably
three feet off the ground
hovering like some strange demon thing
that flits about and sips nectar cocktails in the afternoon
that knows the sky like the back of her hand
like someone who forgot how to stand
and so she leaned to fly