Hard to love you these days.
Hard to swallow ‘round the jagged edges of rejection, lead heavy and burning in throat and belly.
Hard to give and give into the hollow spaces of you where only simple affection lives.
Harder still, to not give at all.

Her hair was the color of cattails in Autumn.
She smiled widely,
Spoke too quickly,
And her hands fluttered about her face.

She said to me:

“So here I am,
Waiting for God to come,
But He’s too busy buying a pack of camels at the corner store.

“He looks at me like he hates me
But he doesn’t know me enough,
Not to hate me anyway.

“See my arms?
Here they are, fragile and dusty as butterfly wings.
Not as pretty though, never as pretty as a Monarch’s.

“See me?
Glittering, covered in diamonds?
But I laugh like broken glass bells.
You can hear the cracks in it, listen:

”Crick! Crick!

“Nobody’s perfect is what I say
But They had it first
So I guess I’m a liar.

“Whats the point of truth anyway?
Reality is the biggest lie,
Not like we’d die without it.

“Not that living’s all that great,
Especially when gods are at the corner,
Too busy exhaling this menthol universe

“Watch out for the flies they keep swatting away
Couldn’t have answered all the prayers.
Sad thing for the flies.

“And I’ll never have a Monarch’s wings
Or be covered in anything other than reflective glass
Its hard to get it all straight,
And remember what’s real.”

I remember when I slipped in,
Like a hazy shadow in the evening’s glow
Of a darkened hall and your bedroom’s light.

You looked of some unearthly perfection to me.

Like some lounging pagan god
On a throne of down pillows
And cotton blue blankets.

And how your eyes looked at me that night!

It was as if you saw something other than
The flawed coffee colored flesh
And awkward hanging of nervous limbs.

Like I was beautiful.

And I remember I could feel it.
Everywhere your eyes rested,
I could feel heat and something pushing beneath my skin-
My body transforming into the splendor you believed me to possess.

And when your eyes traveled to my face-
(Up, past my dipping navel
Through a valley of soft, heavy *******,
Meandering in the hollow of my collar bone until
Rushing up the column of my neck)
- All I could see in you was love;
Heavy and warm and sweet,
Like humid summer air after a rainstorm.

I remember that suddenly,
I wanted nothing but to be naked before you.

I wanted to strip myself bare,
Show you all the hidden parts of me.
Let your eyes rove over the ugly blood and meat of me,
And watch your face as you discovered some piece of beauty visible only to you.

I have never wanted to be loved as much as I did in that moment.

And so,
When you looked at me that night,
And mouthed your prayers and devotion across my shoulder blades,
I gave myself up to you wholly.

And I marveled at the way I ripened to your touch;
I felt myself swell almost to bursting,
And my kisses were slow and heavy and sweet.

Love,
That night I took off my skin for you,
Thick and tough as orange peels.

Did the layer underneath, taste of citrus to you?

My grandmother is old.

This was not always the case. When I was small, she would pack up my things for me and take me to Canada, to Georgia and to the beach. She only ever smacked my hand one time and she never yelled at me. And in the morning, she made me breakfast just how I liked it.

Now she can’t lift a saucepan without trouble.

I find myself wondering strange things about her now: How does she fold her fitted sheets so perfectly?  What does she do to make her sweet potatoes so large?  How did she get so many blooms on her rosebush? Why do her eggs taste so much better than mine?

I don’t ask her these questions. It feels wrong to.

Instead, when I wake in the morning, I will walk to her room across the hall and stoop low enough to hug her with my head resting on her shoulder. Her skin will smell like Lever soap and some jasmine based perfume. I will ask her if she would make the eggs since her’s taste so much better than mine.

She’ll ask if I want her to show me how to make them.

I will say no.

I am not a martyr.
I am not so pious as to suffer the slashing of a knife-edged tongue.
For what cause?

What peace could my silence bring me?

My tongue is metal too.
Perhaps not as sharp as yours,
My words still have the soft scent of gold about them,
But it is metal too.
And I am not a martyr.

I remember when you coddled my name on your tongue.
It was safe there against the slick muscle and gentle press of taste buds.
Why is simple sentiment and unblemished truth to complex for you now?

I don’t want to play these games of ****** and parry with you anymore.
I am cut, you are bleeding, and we are both weary
From the constant cleaving of delicate flesh.

It is a bitter taste that blooms as steel is folded into my tongue
By life and time and all the things we never talk about.
My mouth is tinged with metal and my breath is wet with blood.


This, my love, is a battle for fools to partake in.
My tongue is not yet a blade, too dull for cutting.
All I want to be is soft flesh and slick muscle.
I am not holy enough to stomach the taste of blood on the back of my teeth.

I am not a martyr and neither are you.
So I’ll go.

The chemo makes you tired at first,
So you tend to sleep the day of treatment.

But throughout the week,
The radiation takes its toll.
I watch it slowly unfurl inside of you.

Your joints ache like there are embers between the bones,
And your belly fills with hot, heavy lead,
And your tonsils swell with fluid,
And your *******, traitorous with tumors, are sore and bruised.

This is a pain that eats at you:
Your nerves, your patience, your kind words.

You’re a *****. Vicious and unrepentant. It hurts.

I become petty and spiteful,
Convinced you are determined to make me suffer with you.

You tell me that I don’t care about you anymore.
And I ask you why you can’t appreciate the things I do for you more.

But today,
You showed me how your hair had lost most of its ***** curls,
The follicles soft and preparing for departure,
And you cried because your wig, while pretty, didn’t look like you.

I can only hold your swollen hand
And promise to draw your eyebrows for you.