beasts body | wilderness

Blake Sterling, im dying, love me, from Rebel Darling. 2025

---

has he ever seen

a beasts body move

in wilderness

of muscles and bones

undoing the very skin

which it is contained

by twenty eight these young bones

rupture his hide

and muscles untangle,

his lungs tighten and fail

those eyes steady on horizon

his hands lose their performance.

all that remains is a broken body

of a boy not his own

of a woman never found

of his child never promised

and there, by the grace of god, goes he

to some jesus

across the very ocean he watches

he is called for the last time

by inheritance

and images seeing through him

of trace dancing from his tongue

smoke preceding his ascension

there is nothing left

nothing, for his unloving body

nothing to do with these bones

this skin

that undead desire

he inhaled

held breath made smooth with smoke

held knowledge of this end

held his ribs needing containment

held what remains within him

feeling his smallest rib break by breath

his lung stabbing and exhaling smoke

into his body 

and with dancing air tracing his blood

and bones and flesh within

this new feeling of smoke blown into him

cried all that rushes out 

one final voice came through him whispering

baby your body is broken

and with shut eyes, hands holding one final pose, lips unspeakably parted, and skin staked by his bones

his wilderness traced him

back into this beasts world