Rid of me
The night’s still cold and you say I’m wasting away,
touching your elbows around my waist.
The night’s getting warmer
and I go to the bathroom and take out the straight razor,
cut the buttons off my shirt and let it fall open,
revealing my ribs, revealing the lattice-work of raised
purple scars.
The music in the next room is a slow form of swing.
I hear you dancing by yourself, slippers whispering to the
wood floor.
There’s a half-finished canvas in the living room, biscuits
cooling on the oven rack.
I tell myself in the mirror, this is what you wanted, this
is what you got.
I swallowed the stones to kill the hunger.
I swallowed the whiskey to kill the pain.
The scars peel down beneath the razor.
It’s o.k. because I pulled the bath mats up.
It’s o.k. because you’re still dancing and about to sing.
Your hair is red velvet and your eyes have emerald irises.
The skin on your collarbones is laced through with
pearls.
When I ask if it hurt, you laugh and cry
and grab my face and bite my lip. As I sit sipping the blood,
you tell me “I won’t ever tell you I’m sorry. You’ll just have to know.”
I want to dance and this time I hold your back tight
and cup your neck with my other hand. You touch my wrist
and our faces are close enough to blur. I breathe your breath
and when you move away in a turn, I gasp choking
and grab your lips back to mine.
There needs to be a finish, there needs to be an end.
There needs to be the two of us in the kitchen.
If you consume me you can never be rid of me,
so I offer my neck
but it’s too dramatic and we aren’t kids anymore.
I lean over the stove and give you my sweat
to salt the boiling pasta.
I give you
a cut on my finger to mix with the reducing sauce.
You make me eat it with you over the sink,
so I can never be rid of me either.
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