we're made of strings and small things | poem

And if you get cut, it hurts like hell, unless
hell is inside you, buried beneath the folds
of your skin, and then, I suppose, you’re
akin to stinging bones and words you don’t
know, helicopters circling a phoenix. You
were born here, but you never thought you’d
die here. Never thought you’d become a pile
of overplayed strings on linoleum floor.
Never knew you’d turn blue like cracked
circuits yearning for fire. No, you
thought “grander” things: a cut on the king’s
toe, a politician’s used towels, a celebrity’s
rubber body slipping between sheets. You
wished yourself a plastic boat and floated
toward death. You forgot about the farmers, the doctors,
the hat that was warmer than the hand, how it felt
to kiss your best friend, the feather that fell to earth
like sperm spiraling toward an egg.