your mouth is a tragedy in the works(bleeding
and inspiring) ,a sutured smirk, a gash across your face
(and if mouths are gashes your wrists scream

i’ve tasted on your cracked lips the isopropyc sting
still lingering (you like it too much)
kiss. (kick.) lick. (me.)
(and you only love me when i’m not there.) this is
the aftermath of you&me.

i hate noticing you, reddamp sleeves
and clutching holly leaves (and you a holly chess-piece, and i’d have
willing been your ebony, the bishop the white to your black
(and together we were everywhere and everything, i was
the queen for a king)

the truth, i
was afraid to face what you aren’t, the
things (the stings of what
you could have been,) scribbled down unrealized, careful blue-smeared pen
on crumpled paper. you gave me concave flowers filled
with pieces of your distilled massless soul (and i drank before
i knew what it was);

it’s too late for christmas, too early
for lent (and i’ll swear you off for forty days;
longer, if i can bear it),
and come ash wednesday i’ll wear your poetry (burnt-
i’m afraid but i’m leaving you drinking rust (blood-dust); you
who had an apocalypse etched in your bones

we’re a punctuated grace, the carnage of you&me and so in mistakentribute i’m
grinding red berries between my teeth squeezing out
the dark poisoncliché, the
bitterness of pine and snow (antifreeze-withdrawal lingering
still) (but i still can’t
go back); the truth, this
is the essence of rust(so kiss me again, and
taste (take) it.