Chrysalis in Circles

I spin a shroud

not from silk—

but by chewing the frayed edges

of my own wings,

counting seconds

until they splinter into salt.

Daylight stings like chlorine.

I crawl up the window

on needle legs,

my body hums

with the wrong word:

almost.

Night: I dissolve again,

spooling my spine into thread,

the loom of my ribs weaving

a new chrysalis.

(What is healing but a slow hunger

that eats its own tail?)

Dawn’s blade peels me raw—

I repeat the arithmetic of vanishing:

I count the ways to disappear,

build another house from my veins,

paint its walls with cursive screams

and prayers written in the ink

of a scar that forgets to stay.