Rubies

One for open sores.

I dreamed of hands.

Were they mine or were they yours?

It's too early too tell.

I woke up remembering very little.

The clearest images were holes.

Holes filled with nothing, but dripping with rubies.

Urged on by some puppet master,

I picked at the trenches in my palms

Until they swallowed my fists.

They gorged on my flesh,

Peeling back porcelain, revealing fibrous muscle and then alabaster bone.

Everything disintegrated in harmonious succession.

The grisly dance of peeling and tearing

Peeling and tearing

Continued until the palm-trenches crawled to my heart. 

A cacophony of pain and a chorus of screams,

Were my only accompaniment--

Save for the rubies, which were still fervently flowing.

And then I was drowning,

Trying to grab on to the air.

But I was helpless, limbless and numb.

The clearest images were holes,

And also your hands.

Picking and tearing away at mine.

I awoke and found my hands laid out before me.

They were raw and scab-ridden,

Alight with those rubies.

I hid them from my sight underneath the grey cotton sheets,

Until the blood seeped through

And I realized I still couldn't breathe.