I've been too selfish and kept you
tied into knots on my tongue, or
kept you caged up in the cell structure
of my brain, like an Anglo-Saxon
relic you see the interweaving and
I did that to you, to never let it go.

But, to be fair, people like you tend
to find it reasonable to steal my breath
and not return it, which I do find quite
rude but I'll just pretend you're homeless
and it's only fair to let you keep the warmth,
you might not have enough come winter.

So maybe we'll make up an agreement,
I'll keep your name and give it to
the cat to play with, along with my tongue.
And you can take from me whatever you want,
make a game looking for the missed heartbeats,
use my flat line as a skipping rope.