I spent that October in your bed,
with a dead-bolted heart that betrayed me
before you could.

I spent that October much less a girl
and much more an animal ready for slaughter.
You tore into me, with your teeth bared,
and I sacrificed myself for something so beautiful and unfamiliar that I think time stopped.

Sometimes I imagine us from the outside looking in
our hair black as night
and our skin like gold
and your body over mine,
and I wonder if it looked like love.

But you were a coward
and so was I;
in denial about how our armored hearts had plotted against us.