There’s a hunter in me still,

a calm and coiled predator,

watching through the lattice of rib bones,

eager for your next misstep.


I call it survival,

but the rawness of wanting

feels more like a devouring.
How many times can I trap you

before I’m the one locked in?
Before I slip into the shape of prey,

all taut limbs and trembling bones,
watery eyes and ***** fingernails,

and drown in the sharp end of the game.

You whispered like a bleeding lamb,

soft enough to hide the teeth behind your gums,
sweet enough to steal

the poison from the core of the apple.


I thought it would be different

if I drank you down slowly,

if I let my own venom lie dormant.

But I chewed through the skin of silence

and found what the wolves left behind:
the bitter marrow of your truth,

still sticky with lies.

I could leave you there,

a skeleton in my hunting grounds.

But the hunger for reckoning

stalks me.

It’s feral now.

And when you’re undone,

when your name curls in my mouth

like the peel of a burned fruit,

I will not spit it out.