Certificate of Occupancy

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TRIGGER WARNING: Sustained, graphic body horror involving self-mutilation, dismemberment, blood, exposed organs, and severe physical assault; death and reanimation; themes of identity erasure, loss of bodily autonomy, and disputed consent to bodily alteration; and inescapable conscious confinement within a sealed body, unable to breathe or die.


You wear your finished face to bed.  

Unbolt your bedroom door.  

I died as Ned beneath your hand.  

Your rubbish has the floor.


A hawker sold you splintered bone  

And called the splinter Grace.  

You nicked your cheek; the blood put on  

A faultless stranger’s face.


The splinter asked you, “Which of you  

Is fit to keep the name?”  

You held your cheek against its edge  

And let it pare the shame.


You sliced the lip that begged for cake  

And dropped it in the bin.  

Your pulse applauded in the cut.  

The stars came pouring in.


You cut the hand that stroked the dog  

And called its shaking Care;  

You shut it in a kitchen drawer.  

It stroked what wasn’t there.


You cut the tongue that spoiled the hymn  

By laughing at the priest;  

A pound of laughter hit the scales.  

Your value had increased.


Each little death signed for the next;  

You stamped each form Consent.  

You heard a scream inside the drawer  

And charged it back for rent.


The bone drew tight each bleeding mouth  

And sealed the flesh like glass;  

Each wound grew smooth behind the point,  

Too smooth for death to pass.


At last you cut the heart that jumped  

When someone whispered “Ned.”  

You wrote Deceased beside my name  

And wore my clothes instead.


The hand broke out to find the heart  

Face-down beside the grate;  

It stroked the ash from every valve.  

The heart began to hate.


The lip still wanted buttercream;  

The hand still stroked the floor.  

We stitched a man from want and dark  

And brought him to your door.


I stepped across the bolted wood  

And left the bolts in place;  

The lamp shone through my tattered gut  

And burned across your face.


You pinched the wick. The room went blind.  

You swallowed down your shout.  

My fist shot up between your teeth  

And pulled your palate out.


You snatched the bone to mend your mouth  

And smoothed the damage flat;  

My hand passed through your fist like smoke.  

What blade can better that?


“I’ll pay,” you said. “My house. My name.”  

You searched me for a price;  

I spread the hand that loved your dog.  

You flinched—and offered twice.


“You asked,” you said, “for every cut.  

You begged to be made new.”  

We stood before the looking glass.  

It gave one face for two.


I signed for less of everything.  

I never signed for none.  

You were the Ned I meant to make.  

See what the work has done.


“Then give them back,” you said. “My parts.  

I’ll take the bloody load.”  

I set the foot against your leg.  

It turned toward the road.


I took the bone and told you how  

Your mouth was still a door.  

“Then close it,” said the careful man  

Who’d asked for less before.


I drew the point across your lips  

And felt your ears grow tight;  

I glazed the nostrils, stopped the eyes,  

And polished out the light.


Your skin became a city wall;  

Your skull became its throne.  

No gate, no drain, no hinge, no crack.  

One citizen. Alone.


You took no breath. You could not die.  

I set you on the shelf.  

You’d made a thing no worm could eat.  

You had to keep yourself.


I pressed one wish against your brow,  

A small thing, warm and thin.  

The bone could not reopen you.  

My whisper let it in.


I snapped the bone across my knee  

And tucked the halves away;  

You’d need no further work from me.  

The flesh had learned to stay.


I cinched my coat with loops of gut;  

The hand went out ahead.  

Your dog came whining through the gate  

And licked the palm of Ned.


“Go out,” it cried behind your eyes.  

You could not find a door.  

You threw yourself against yourself.  

Yourself was wall and floor.