you move with precision,
every action planned ahead
sweet craftsman, sweet baby,
watch the thoughts turn in your head.
no word without reason,
no drop spilt to waste,
rough hands building mountains, and technology, and space.
the way that i feel with you is something like faith,
like the cosmos is within you,
like there are intangible waves.
the energy oozing all around -
shall i catch it in my hands, love?
shall i collect it with care, make an exhibit of it,
title: pure adoration.

i’m thinking ten years ahead,
god, you’ve got me deluded,
love-making, cycle-breaking,
and it’s all on paper.
the waves keep on flowing,
the energy persists,
trickling through my hands,
it exists, it exists.
i believe in the first law of thermo-whatever,
how it was not created and how it will not be destroyed,
how it can only convert from one form to another.
how it must go somewhere.

how i hope that it stays.

trace your words up my neck, baby,
undress my wounds with your lips,
peel back the gauze that’s wrapped round
tight,
and become my own arterial tourniquet.

your presence amputates
a lifetime of hurt,
your touch the saw, the undertaker of extremities lost,
but not missed.

chopping the rot off clean,
you stitch worship into my jagged flesh,
ripped and pulled apart from years of battle, of begging,
of broken bones.
how many times did i perch upon my bed, knees up,
reckoning with fate?
how many times did my eyes flicker across your face,
gazing at a chance of absolution,
unknowingly?

to be close to the knife is my tragedy,
slip the blade through my ribs and i’ll pull in closer.
but some cuts are needed,
and my skin is your canvas,
though, you have never been a violent man.
it is your gentleness that unmakes.
my sweet unraveller, carve out the infestation with soft hands,
repeat the ritual until purity;
it is simple, just as i taught you:

gut the fish,
clean out the belly.

open your eyes
and you will see it:
face hidden,
lips lifted.
my obvious secret.

you consume:
tapentadol for lost teeth,
refrigerated dreams,
and my cardiac muscle;
unseen by the blazing light
for months, for years.
locked far away,
as all witches should be.

you are
blue like my sky,
blue like my- what?
like my new road?
my black country that is no more?

you thief!
how i see you clearly now.