consumed
i will expire
in the air he breathes

condensation
in the night
as i dance
and i sigh

I am naked; you are not.
I bleed; you do not.

Everything is okay, you say.
I know you’re lying,
you know you’re lying,
and I don’t care.

All this to hold me bleeding,
to be a good man.

His shark brain in a frenzy
me, a rag doll.
We lay in willing chains,
a useless pile of woman and man.

Strange that all I hold on to
is playing solitaire, drinking morning hotel coffee,
all in front of a skyscraper picture window.

I thought of jumping.
He thought of nothing.

wax, hot and dripping
into my palms, pink from cold
and squeezing his hands
under trees on fire from
autumn being scattered by
Persephone going under again

hot, we flicker like the candle
scarring our palms

a wasp stumbled
into my black house
tapping its body
along the hallway
like a dry, dead finger

quietly I crept beneath it
and introduced it to death
with a swing and a shoe