I Wear Your Bones

i wear your bones, an ornament
culled as evidence from the existence of
a love sentenced to an abrupt death
by betrayal. a love eaten by
vultures of an initial fury, decayed
by the wriggling maggots of the subsequent
self-pity pathos, eroded by the inevitable
sands of time. depraved of body and soul,
yet these are what remains

i wear your bones, deep impression
under the skin, their whiteness ground me
from within. another set of ribcage wraps
around the broken heart, trying to cure it
with artificially sweetened memories,
it’s like having two persons trying
to squeeze inside a tight suit. two right limbs
meandering to the wrong direction, on the
left. these ossified sentiments disorientates me
i tried walking the other way, but kept
going in circles, like an windmill grinding
against the wind, fragments drifting like daffodils.

lest you take these words as a lament, this
dressing up of a skeletal past an inability to
let go. one word: no. you might think that
the superfluous spine snakes like a tourniquet
across my neck, choking the chance of fresh air.
or you might have the misconception that
an extra pair of eye sockets equates to more
tears on a painted life. patched together with
my melancholy face on our last parting.
you would think, along with all my friends
that i would be better off discarding these
bones, rather than wearing them.

but even the hardest boulder can be
wept into sands, the molten lava of
a volcano eventually wrinkles into
the face of an unmovable mountain.
and i’ll rather be wearing your bones
than to bury them from view. one never
knows when the dead can resurrect
and clings onto the living unexpectedly, when
the closet is opened up one morning. that will
be haunting. and it’ll be more haunting if
another lover is disturbed. no, i’ll rather
take these bones squarely on the shoulder
wear them with the dignity of a soldier
even if i have to grind them to bits
with my own bones. even if this means
suffering in silence from within. i am
not defeated, and i won’t be haunted
because i chose not the easy way out
forgetting is simple if one pretends,
and the ultimate sadness is if one felt no pain.
no, i’m certain that happiness will be found,
because i’ve worn your bones.