Phantom Beauty

Art by Alexandria Ficarro (2021 archive)

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I’m not even real anymore.

                                                                     my hands float by 

                                                                     detached from my body 

in a sea of plasma

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they are drowning

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holding what looks like my heart 

but it’s just a photograph 

of the one the doctor showed me. 

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no longer red and beating 

now far more bloody 

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my hands are to blame 

                                                                      all my ribs are broken 

                                                                      took my duct tape and a scalpel 

                                                                      scrapped out my insides

                                                                      and taped them back together.

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                                                                      called it a miracle- a dream 

                                                                      The handiwork 

                                                                      of a god I’ve never seen 

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turned me inside out 

replaced my eyeballs with glass 

my skin with porcelain 

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                                                                       you got mad when my hands came back 

                                                                       stained my new skin bloody 

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I pry at my heart 

cause now I know it is missing 

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you kicked me off the concrete wall 

said it was “all my fault” 

slapped you back harder 

                                                                        so you took an ax and chopped me up 

                                                                        packaged my remains 

                                                                        in decadent boxes 

                                                                       with canary ribbons on top 

said I’d haunt you forever 

so that’s just what I’ll do

                                                                         took my severed hands 

                                                                         started to twist your words 

                                                                         ended up only loving other dead girls 

                                                                         the ones you made just like me 

                                                                         almost haunting seeing my face again 

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and I know you’re sick 

of my butterfly tears 

they fly away 

before you can steal them 

                                                                         I'm still so pretty when I cry.

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