The fol­low­ing poet­ry bled from a bor­der­line heart. Always caught between feel­ing every­thing at once and noth­ing at all, it swings from eupho­ria to depres­sion with reck­less aban­don. A bor­der­line heart which sinks in the sea as you van­ish from its skin. Sto­ries can­not cap­ture the ocean in which it’s drown­ing. But my words always find a home in the unsteady rhythm; between smithereens of emo­tion and the vac­u­um of line break [they thun­der.] Death of a Sun  is a record of the things I nev­er got to say, maybe because it was too late and a sun had already burned out, maybe out of fear or pride, or maybe just because some­times you miss the right moment, and the words nev­er seem prop­er again. This is a foretaste.

TW: rejec­tion sen­si­tiv­i­ty dys­pho­ria /  the regret and self-hate we expe­ri­ence after being rejected

We see the flames too late

Shy­ly, she takes a step out of her bunker,
doubt­ing glances are direct­ed at
the one who knows bet­ter.
Half-healed burns adorn her face,
and she pulls away in agony,
with breath sti­fled she retreats to the 
safe­ty behind iron walls.
She turns around, 
watch­es with a wist­ful heart
the rain pour out­side the bunker 
on the peonies.

She longs to under­stand
trust with­out fear, 
a mem­o­ry so pris­tine
she had for­got­ten its face.
But I, who had walked through the flame,
shel­tered in the dark­ness of the bunker,
I remem­ber the blaz­ing fires, 
the smell of burn­ing flesh,
the screams which shat­tered my throat. 
But the rain. 
The rain smells sweet. On tip­toes she waits by the door, 
with aching eyes. 

A drop falls on her skin, 
star­tled, she flinch­es, before she is over­come with a smile.
I would nev­er let her leave the safe­ty of our iron cas­tle,
had not the rain promised inti­ma­cy and the caress of pas­sion flow­ers which lean towards it.
She stretch­es out her hand with nov­el trust and my heart
stops. But the flow­ers soft­ly hold her hands. She cranes her head
towards the sky, and holds her breath, and for a moment she is love. 

We see the flames too late. 

Sens­ing the stench of their avarice, I leap to my feet, run to the door, but stop, as if sep­a­rat­ed from her by a trans­par­ent wall. 
She whim­pers, pressed against a tree trunk. 
The flames pass her by, the rain con­tin­ues to pat­ter, 
but instead of the scent of flow­ers, it spills blood,
its caress noth­ing short of rejec­tion.
The rain may have invit­ed her, but safe­ty was mere illu­sion. 
Why it feels like she is dying, she can­not explain.
She looks at me, cov­ered in blood, and whim­pers, “Not even the fire want­ed me. ” 

The rain drops now hit her like rocks. The pas­sion flow­ers turn to ros­es, sting her with repulse.
When the tears burst,
she feels relieved—
Drop for drop cre­at­ing space for her ocean to flood over the lands and the flow­ers and the bunker.
But the rain. She looks at me, sud­den­ly reliv­ing the flames.

TW: split­ting / the vio­lence in bru­tal­ly burn­ing your feel­ings to the ground

But­ter­flies

But­ter­flies,
gut­ted, blood spills from the walls
in the morgue.
But­ter­flies,
rot from the inside, a shape dis­fig­ured and deformed,
charred maws whis­per with burnt voic­es—
But­ter­flies, 
creep behind my eyes,
bur­row into my chest,
force them­selves against my eye­lids
and wrench them open.
But­ter­flies, 
crash against my skin,
tear my flesh to shreds until 
my love is but a per­fo­rat­ed enve­lope—
But­ter­flies, 
scratch out my eyes until 
the truth I had taught myself to see
has choked itself out of exis­tence.
I am can­ni­balised fin­ger­prints 
beyond recog­ni­tion.

TW: per­ceived and actu­al aban­don­ment / the feel­ing of betrayal

It’s always been you

“It’s always been you,” you pro­claim 
and rest your head on her shoul­der, 
and take her to the con­cert 
that was sup­posed to be our sec­ond chance. 
“It’s always been you,” you say, 
before you hold her hands and tell her 
she is noth­ing like your pre­vi­ous mis­takes. 
“It’s always been you,” you con­fess, 
but it was nev­er me 
quite enough. 

TW: a bpd fan­ta­sy comes crash­ing down in a real­i­ty check

Penn­syl­va­nia

I had stood by the edge of my earth, 
lis­ten­ing to the seag­ulls ser­e­nad­ing me
with the song of you 
just across the ocean 
you would be wait­ing too
and some­where between us, 
our oceans would melt into one 
I couldn’t know you’d nev­er go to sea 
but set­tled for the sim­plic­i­ty 
of Penn­syl­van­ian streets.

TW: emo­tion­al dysregulation

Ves­sel

ON SOME DAYS,
I need anoth­er ves­sel 
to con­tain this 
abun­dance of me 
this scarci­ty of you 
too much and too lit­tle 
make woman like no other

TW: inten­si­ty / all or nothing 

Teeth

Bury me in fire, love. 
Rup­ture my soul. 
Watch it evap­o­rate into a black sky. 
Sink your teeth into my skin. I want you to leave scars: 
Drown me five oceans deep. 
It’s all or noth­ing when flames con­sume me head to heart to feet.

More poet­ry and fic­tion by Mer­cy:
A M N E S I A I—III
Snkllr
The Eter­nal Pro­gram
Please Don’t Leave: Ver­lus­tangst

DEATH OF A SUN will be pub­lished in fall 2022. More infor­ma­tion on www.mercyferrars.de and on Insta­gram (@snkllrpublications). Mer­cy Fer­rars is a writer and pho­tog­ra­ph­er based in Berlin. She is mad­ly in love with Scot­land, dogs and Bojack Horseman.