The boy you love says, *I’m going to **** you.*
So you let him.
You let him take you home and
you sit in his room while
the heat from his fingertips lingers on the doorknob.
The steam from the shower
curls like smoke into the room
and he wants to swallow you whole,
so you jump right into his mouth.
It’s wet.
It’s hot.
You can’t breathe.
This is Unbearable.
But you get to be with him
—in a corner of him—
lying on his balcony.
This is what you wanted.
So these rusty bars that crisscross over his heart,
this forgotten half of an apple,
the rawness of your body—
you asked for it.
You had booked a ticket to this ****** cave—
to breathe in him, with him,
exhale him.
And now you get to taste him,
drink of him, drown in him,
die from him.
But you’re waiting for him to turn the shower off,
turn the sky on,
nick away the black and paint it blue again,
blow a few white clouds into the emptiness.
And you hear him—hands on your handle—turn it off.
But the water keeps running.
This doesn’t make sense, you say.
The water gushes down the glass pane,
wets your pain.
Your arteries pump this water.
I’m not thirsty, you say.
But the water is still running and
his chest is thunder, his mouth is granite.
There’s no lightening to light your way out,
no way to see the clock.
This never-ending minute,
this hour of forever,
the ocean that flows back up into the river.
This is all wrong, you say.
But he doesn’t hear you
because his body is covering yours,
crushing yours.
A cracked sternum,
some water in your lungs,
a little blood in your tears
—but it’s okay, because he gave it to you.
And you deserve this, you do…
to remain here in static acid forever
so you don’t forget.
The boy bit my thigh,
sharpened the left blade of my shoulder,
couldn’t remember my name
or the warmth of my blood.
But he memorized the place in the river
where my body was thrown
—a stone, some silt,
the scales of a trout.
But even with these, he’s still left
drenched in his own body.