Coffins Poem by Maya Hanson

Midnight, I am your audience
because I want to build something other than coffins
I want to speak in something other than regret

Skyscraper, I am your witness
because I want to feel something other than small

The sun feeds me the bones that
I can't clench in my teeth
to carry them to you like I want to

But as the days get shorter I feel at home
like the absence of light understands me

I don't need to tell you
about how this isn't Neverland
I can't wrap you in forever

Every time I touch a different skin
every time I smile at a different human
I'm giving the gift of
eventually leaving behind these tiny explosions,
nothing but coffins in my wake

This body is a breathing ruin,
a ritual of forgetting,
there's not enough of me left to know.