Last night I cut a hole along my hips
to try and remove the 10-year-old-stain.
Your skin regenerates every 27 days.
What a comfort that has been.
Yet your touch has seeped through the surface
and has sprouted roots inside my body.
Like a cancer, it grows.
Stretching and grabbing.
Devouring and swallowing up
the only thing I can call my own.
A sacred place, an area less than.

I cut a hole along my chest and opened up my ribcage.
Another place you left your mark.
Remove the point of disease and the disease will cease to exist.
I ripped and tore and thrashed away.
The muscle left weak but still beating.
Breathless and shaking I realized,
your roots continued to grow.

I cut a hole along the palm of my hand.
The hand I used to grab yours.
The hand I entrusted to you.
The hand that failed me.
The hand that saved me.
And what a sick irony that has been.
I separated the tendons, the ligaments from the muscle.
I looked for you between my fingers and under my nails.
The entire thing was tainted black.
Useless to me now, without former or future purpose.

I cut a hole along my neck.
The voice that abandoned my resides here.
I made a small puncture and drained it out.
But the infection wouldn't stop flowing.
It was no longer my voice, but yours that spilled from me.
It was endless, deep, thick and violent.
It felt warm like you.
And then cold again.

Defeated, last night, I cut holes.