Hiding out in the attic

At the sound of your footsteps

My hand full of almonds,

a book of Hughes

and one yellow jolly rancher

I tiptoe out of my skin

Leave it in my bed for you to take

and hasten to the attic

I open her up and climb her steep stairs

careful of her creaks

A pitch black hollow case

I'm screaming in my old bones

at the coldness of your shadow

Sucking steadily on my candy,

laughing off how naked I've become

I've formed a hard scar of pink hairless skin,

it hasn't any nerve left

We've no room for any beauty in our world

to show itself through our highest window

even in our darkest night

I see only the reflection in the glass 

of what you created in her

At moon rise I drift between his arms and mine,

I suck between candy and hate

Death confronts me, asking, "why do you stay?"

I lay my body on the tracks like a damsel to be flattened

and stand when the whistle blows

because, my life is also hers

and my pain must swallow sin

Daughter is just a pig for the slaughter

I've married my fate,

I'll live for my torture

and dissolve all my being to a flat scab

I pick up my body and crawl down the steps,

hands splintered and heavy,

barely anything to give

I thank her for her time,

she closes in relief,

and to the young bedside I take my soul,

and kiss real eyelids that flutter with dreams

My body drags itself to it's chamber

and though to fight is torture,

She screams in the king's ears

She takes the swift ambush of bruises,

the body a cleaned out cushion,

the time passed in the counting of wishes lost,

the blood dried and the tears sticky

and scrubs her skin in peroxide

Embracing her future on the inside

leaving the king crying and empty

Telling herself she's still alive,

her stomach a fist full of pits,

her mother a beautiful mass of sobs,

the future queen unaware of her future,

the king a frightened distraction

Knees up he sits by her bedside,

and all he's done immerses his skin