Callie McDonald

To contemplate, "Beauty should be painless."
Life should be painless.
Death should be painless.
I should be painless.
But sixty pills sit in the soap dish.
And I'm drizzling water into the square tiles.
Staring into the oblivion of the softened soak waters.
I whisper.
"This is merciful."
My rib cage looks back at me.
Taunting the hand that holds the little red capsules.
They swirl around in the angels halo.
Until they drown with our waste.
Father's stolen cigarettes.
I lit one up.
Puffing the incantation of cancer on his back bone bridge.
Listening to the sound of music through the wired collarbone.
I watched the bees dance with the flowers, and saw the birds play with stones.
I felt nothing but the burn in my lungs and the desire to be set free.
Could've killed two birds with one bottle.
But baby bird, so innocent, so tender.
Tender as the flesh they castrated and cut from her sweet soul.
Tore into her like a fleshy bone. 
But then, to contemplate, "Beauty should be painless."
But I know their words are shallow ended swords.
Punctuating the body's core.
They stick a bandaid on my sores.
And they let me bleed.
Life should be painless.
Death should be painless.
I should be painless.
But I am not.
Nor will you or this world be.