Maw-mouth

Skin full of shadows, haunted
by what belies the myth
at the center of the story,
a distance not granted
except in the illusion of authorship.
I can protest my innocence,
claim, truthfully perhaps,
that I am not the one who carved these words
into the stone foundation of a life
made hungry by all the needs
I could not meet.
Still, it was my invitation
calling you all back home to me,
crying out to the endless unfurling,
knife-sharp in the darkness:
Stay. Please, stay.
It is a crushing weight, and amused
recognition of my own deeply
ironic naivete when I bear always
the markings of my own rage,
traceries of the only love
I knew how to give myself,
the only way I could eat.
It grows cold here, and weighted
by the things I don’t want you to see,
afraid as I am of what you will find
as I grant myself the certain kindness
of blank pages, a quiet pen,
a story let go, trusted enough
not to need to say what cannot, after all,
be spoken except in skin
and silence
and the last fragile shards of being
glinting in the darkness.

Maw-mouth is absolutely referencing the creatures of the same name in the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik which is fucking amazing and everyone should read.