oh, silly thing, i am here.
i am a thousand mouths that cry. i am your mother's broken heart. i am the wailing stuck behind your teeth and the roar of some ancient thing chained to each of your knuckles.
i am sharpening my claws and the edges of my tongue. i am the thing you can't catch in the mirrors, i am what lives in the soil of their guts. i am the sweet rot you promised your heart to, when you were too young and too stupid to understand what it meant.
i am your father's stubborn mouth. i am the faint, tired summer sun. i am what you have tried to scrape out of the very marrow of you. i am what you have hollowed your bones and your flesh and your veins for. i am the blood and the bile and the open, pulsing cavity of you. i am the ringing in your ears, the faint, leaded sleep.
i am the heavy beat of metal on your palate. i am.