Lonliness Remains

I'll never be beautiful, not the way other girls are.
I'll never be thin enough, if not physically, in my mind.
I could purge my organs and still I wouldn't be satisfied.
I want to run away from myself.
I want to crack my chest open wide and watch the blood spew forth, crimson and warm.
I would stand tall, erect, letting my entrails burst through the opening. Every part of me would be obvious, visible. The anguish and self-pity, the lonely nights spent hidden under the safety of my covers.
They would see it all, my audience, the street dwellers. They would see my thoughts, my insecurities written plainly on the cement. My blood would form the words as if magnetically pulled. There it would be my past, every broken promise, every forgotten dream. It would play out like the scene in a bad movie. Me, standing naked and exposed, white flesh reflecting the suns rays. They would come to me, those brave enough to approach, and study me like art. Sticking their finger, hands inside of me, the eldest would pull out my beating heart. Standing still in a circle around me they would pass my heart to one another; warm and dripping, pulsing and fighting to stay alive. Around and around it would go, circling me, taunting me. Fifty, Seventy Eight, One hundred and three times I would see my heart pass. Reaching out urgently, feverishly, I would try to grab it. They would laugh as I spun, trying to get it back. Next they would take my ribs cracking them, throwing them down like waste. Muscle sinew and bone, little by little I would fall apart, yet remain tall.
Laughter, laughter, they would be laughing all around me, taunting me, screaming my name. I wouldn't be able to get near them. Running I would chase their smiles, my organs.

City streets, taxi's stop. I try to get in, I cannot grip the handle. They want to take me away. I look inside the drivers are all angels, I cannot reach them. I remain alone, searching.
Rats flood the sewers, locusts swarm. Every building houses a million insects. As their doors open the insects swarm the city. They rush me, filling me up inside, still dropping blood I am a rotting disease. The termites get inside of me, buzzing, I can feel their wings vibrate, tickling my spine. I can hear them from the inside, chewing away my flesh, sucking what blood remains. I look down at my hands, blue flesh, black nails, fingers of bone. I plunge one inside of the wound in my chest and clench my fist grabbing a handful of insects. My hand is covered in blood, dark, it smells of rotting meat. With my hand free I shovel the insects into my mouth, handful by handful the numbers are dissipating. I chew, swallowing them they become a part of me. The wound is being filled up, organs regenerate and fall into place. I am becoming whole again.
People pass, I go unnoticed naked and shivering in this city. Children walke by clutched to their mother's side, they see me, see my pain. They look inside of me and offer their hearts, lungs, a spleen. They offer a pint of blood and smiles. I see in their eyes compassion, not pity.
A child offers me his blanket and I refuse, knowing of his attachment to it. He pulls a cloud from the dark sky and fastens a robe for me. Velvet, purple and gold with a belt made of flowers.

My blood is still flooding the streets, the people, they wear rubber rain boots, blue and grey. I can see it now, my blood draining into the sewers, filling them up. I cup my hands taking in mouthful's, gulping it down sweet, red and sticky. It fills my veins. I can feel it expanding my arteries, it is painful, dreadful.
It begins to rain big, heavy drops, grey and steely they stain my skin. I am being cleansed, purged of my sins.

My heart beating warm is in a nest, no bird just a nest of cotton and twine. I pick it up slowly, gently as if handling an infant for the first time. I hold it to my chest as it pulses, it is smaller than I remember, almost black. I place it inside the cavity that remains and peer down watching it pulse.
There is suddenly no soul around.
Walking into a river I remove my velvet robe and with leaded feet, allow my body to be pulled under. Loneliness begets me, and only flowers remain.