Flay my skin,

peel back my pink muscle,

spool my veins,

pool the blood,

and dip your hands in the bucket of white paint.

Use your fingers to decorate my bones, white on white:

color me with white flowers on ivory backing—

paint the snow on white canvas—

give my rib cage ornate eggshell teeth on calcium bone― 

make me colorfully void.

Mark me with all the colors you can see,

all of them at once. 

Contain the limitless with dripping white

and take your paint-wet hand and place it upon your face.

Close your eyes and paint yourself for war,

bathe in war paint upon the wild,

become naked, clothed only with the war paint on your skin.

Stand over my flayed body like you’ve always wanted to

and show the Wild what you are:

A wanderer through dense forest. You still remember.

Naked and rustled with boar tusks,

bristling with pungent brine,

ready to label it all for your own.

Look down upon me, upon the wild.

The white paint on white bone.

That conquered flesh shorn into sheet, 

those sinewy veins wound into cord, 

that muscle cut into meals.

Look upon my delicate skeleton, 

the beauty of your ivory masterpiece, 

the perfect painting,

see all that you have conquered 

came truly from the urge to create.

The ugliness you’ve unleashed 

all upon me. 

Subtly beautiful

upon me,

upon the wild.