Her skin clings but won't bark-chip
and I am stuck pondering the contradictions of lust--
confusions and revisions of the same desperate line
But-- I loved you,
I loved you,
I love you never sounded right.

I have a fervent untrimmed wick.
When I flicker: I slip--

unless I forget and dial tonight.
I will not call.

But her eyes closed tightly when she kissed me--
I watched as her eyelashes
fluttered and fell on my
cheeks--

I will cry your wishes away.
I will try to forget we existed.
I will twist and thrash unleashed and unabashed

I will make a loud noise.
I will scream in my sleep
when the moment to choose confronts me.

Then,
Why when our fingertips itched
were our tangles strewn out in obsessive neat
lines--
my lust and the pain in her taking.
my desperate ache for her lip.
for the smell she occupied and wore
like the smell of mold on trees

I cannot change the way she bleeds.