in my worship, i kiss your spine and chant, whispering, "i love you, i love you," as though prayer. holy light burns on my finger-tips when my hands find your shoulders, and in this union i take my communion.
i love you. i love you. i love you. i'll write it in waves. in skies. in my heart. you'll never see, but you will know. i'll be all the poets, i'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be you.
'i've never been loved. i don't know how to be loved.'
he'd it confessed so quietly, like a secret.
it's the most natural thing in the world; reverence in his touch when he reaches out, takes both hands in his.
'can i teach you?'
my teeth should graze him, my teeth should haunt the crook of his neck. i didn't know whether i wanted to devour or worship, but i understood he should cry out only for me.
i know i was made to be a weapon, i know i cannot ask for warmth, but please, god, please, i am tired of being a knife. i do not want to be this violence anymore.
"i've never been loved. i don't know how to be loved."
he'd it confessed so quietly, like a secret.
it's the most natural thing in the world; reverence in his touch when he reaches out, takes both hands in his.
"can i teach you?"
i kissed his knuckles, each of them, split and bloodied. i lapped at the wounds, and thought his blood was mine. i pressed a kiss to his closed fist, and knew that his protection was mine. the dog on my leash, the lover who hung on every word off my lips.
he kisses you, because you're cold. he makes himself a hearth in your heart, because it's empty.
bringing new kindling for the flame with every touch & broken gasp—
he loves you,
slaving away to feed your fire, even when the embers lick at his fingers.
always weary, always tired. the days drag on and i have become fatigued even at the thought of my own body stumbling between doorways. the seasons change. i do not. i make a grave of this mattress.
'tell me, will the grief ever pass?'
'no. but it will change. it will feel like an open wound for a long time. there will always be a scar, but someday you'll treat it as a reminder of your love.'
does it haunt you? your past, the names splotched in red, the smiles you'll never see again? do you lay awake at night, begging not to dream of what could have been?
but how am i meant to stop aching for you? how am i meant to grieve you now? you've left, you're gone, and the earth is so much colder for it. what am i without my sun?
i know i was made to be a weapon, i know i cannot ask for warmth, but please, god, please, i am tired of being a knife. i do not want to be this violence anymore.
i fell in love with the concept of martyrdom. to be filled so completely with a love for something to be willing to suffer terribly for it, to die for it. and, oh god, how i then found it with you—
but death, oh gentle death, how he holds me like a lover; wraps his cloak over my weary and weathered shoulders, kisses my temple and whispers sweet & fondly: "i have waited a lifetime for you, dearest. come, i will not wait again."
i swallow it raw. every tear, every sound of grief that might try to fall from my lips. it tastes like flesh, like blood. like i might be lying to myself about not missing you.
i look at him, with a great fondness and a suffocating sense of melancholy i have no memory to pass blame to. maybe the same kind of feeling of regret i would hold for someone i could have spent a lifetime with.
he's been burned, bruised, beaten, any number of words to describe how the world's tried to ruin him and still, he touches. he shines and he laughs and he knows to love without fear. and it's radiant.
he kisses you, because you're cold. he makes himself a hearth in your heart, because it's empty.
bringing new kindling for the flame with every touch & broken gasp—
he loves you,
slaving away to feed your fire, even when the embers lick at his fingers.
to be mutually possessive of each other in the way hunters are, stalking prey and taking what is ours. that is the tangent of us. that is where we meet.
my gentlest friend,
it is your favorite pastime to kill me again and again and again. unwitting sadist, you. i croon for your marks and claws. may you never know.
yours, so long as you will have me.
it haunts me. his laughter. soft cadences, such enchanting melodies, the way his song would never seem to end. that's not the truth, is it? it did end. as abruptly as a bird having its neck snapped.
'we were always going to say goodbye, weren't we?'
'yeah, i think so.'
'i loved you though. i loved you so much.'
a pause.
'i know, i know. i loved you too.'
my teeth should graze him, my teeth should haunt the crook of his neck. i didn't know whether i wanted to devour or worship, but i understood he should cry out only for me.
you guide my hands down your sides, to your hips, and in my palms there is now the weight of the world. the curve of my world. suddenly i'm a little more breathless, i know i've lost myself in the mirror of your dark eyes.
you'd laughed once, and said, "i wish someone would write about me like that." what you couldn't have known is that the pen was mine, i was the author, and i had devoted every stroke of ink to you.
he had me with a grip on my throat or a dog on a leash. and i would follow blindly, wherever he would lead me; with the zeal of a martyr and the obedience of a soldier.
when i first met you, you looked at me as if you knew something about me that i didn't know myself. you saw me for the man i hadn't yet become, and you lit the path for me to get there.
he was another knife. i could feel it. a different sort, but a knife still. i did not care. and i thought: give me the blade. some things are worth spilling blood for.
there is degradation in loving you, you leave my heart battered. there is something filthy about the way you love me. but a dog always finds its way back home.
i kissed his knuckles, each of them, split and bloodied. i lapped at the wounds, and thought his blood was mine. i pressed a kiss to his closed fist, and knew that his protection was mine. the dog on my leash, the lover who hung on every word off my lips.
no one will kiss him because his lips are cracked; / no one will kiss him because he tastes like smoke; / no one will kiss him because he screams in his sleep.
but death, oh gentle death, how he holds me like a lover; wraps his cloak over my weary and weathered shoulders, kisses my temple and whispers sweet & fondly: "i have waited a lifetime for you, dearest. come, i will not wait again."
he was holding him too softly, with too much tender assurance that he felt something sick twisting in his gut, like shame at himself.
'but i am a monster,' he says, desperate for him to heed this warning. (he means: save yourself.)
'then you are my monster.'
love is consumption. digging my teeth into your shoulder, bite by bite, swallowing you. you will thank me for this, and you not would have it any other way.
he won't stop worrying his canines to your wrist. and you know, in your throat and in your heart, that feeding him only makes him a greater monster. or maybe, perhaps, you're the glutton. you don't want him to leave, do you?
i lay with you, watching your chest rise and fall, in the summer heat. i twist the locks away from your eyes, tuck them back to your ear, and think to myself: let june never end. let summer's love always be warm and full of life.