I should have quit
but instead I continued to care for you,
even as you sliced each cut
delicate but deep
into me.

If only I had known
the morphine-tuned tubes
that would inhabit my arms.
The clatter of that knife
the symphony of my life
as my vitals
begin to desert
the hum they give to these machines.

I should have quit,
but I stayed -

I should have quit,
because there was no saving you,
now, there's no saving me.