Decay Theory

by Cam S. Guillen



​

​
I

the body begins
with failure
a misfired enzyme,
a mole you forgot to name

I unzip myself in the mirror,
skin peels easy
like fruit that never ripened

my liver pulses
not with function
but with memory:
a barstool
her laugh
a bloody knuckle

II

I catalogue the collapse:
– tongue: forked (from too many bitten truths)
– lungs: brittle (from inhaling her last cigarette)
– heart: split (diastole and regret)
– hands: twitching (phantom touches, unresolved)

I become

      the lab report.

A specimen
leaking
sonnets.

III

They keep me in a jar now.
Formalin.
Labeled: experimental affection

Once, someone kissed my clavicle
and called it home.

Now, it is geography
for students.

Bone is the first to remember.
Bone is always
the last
to forgive.

IV

my shadow detaches
and files for independ_ _ _ _

even the maggots
won’t speak to me now

I write this
with a borrowed hand,
a stranger’s wrist
sewn to mine

because mine forgot
how to hold
what I loved

I nod when they say
I’m stable

but I can know better
there is rot
beneath

the resolution.


Cam S. Guillen is an author and literary critic.