dedicated to m.m.
thank you for being my constant star

inadequacy: canines sinking in—dogbane.

thrown to the wolves, snapping delicate bones.

you know she deserves (still deserving, always)

flesh that was not your own, untouched by

the deep of night and tragic scales.

you swear that she emerged from your fever

dreams: the ones born from cream and childhood

memories, tasting like a godless heaven. she is

a mercy-given sun but not yours to claim.

no one was created for you.

of course, of course, you will die alone.

but sometimes you imagine that she is yours and

that souls were made for each other, and your heart

will not swallow itself whole from shame of desire

and want. you pray to every star and galaxy that

there is still something left.

she touches your hand, and it burns: her fingers,

a branding iron and her lips, a fire. you think she wants

to kill you, and you want to die, so it’s okay. and then,

your mouth is gone, even when she tastes like golden

honey and sunlit smoke.

this is a fool’s reverie.

when god beats the drum of thunder and
lightning strikes the earth, she loses almost everything
but her one good eye.

her one good eye that trembles,
as her other pools with blood, filling her with 
half-rage and half-grief. her one good eye that
she lifts to see the body—her body—sprawled out
across the floor in consequence of the warpath
of liquid strangers.

her veins drip madness and sticky, carmine gold.
she shuts her eye and her mother is smiling,
plucks at her child’s rosy cheeks and, “my what
a beautiful girl.” she idly considers recreating the
sistine chapel with her fingers and the paint
from under skin.

she decides against it.

there is an unintelligible harmony and choir of angels
when he finds her, drooling violence and nearly
moribund. there are tears from him that drip and quiver,
a stumble to explication: the gore, the sight, all too
much but he knows better the truth.

they become an anchor point in chaos, inseparable
and intertwined but not all permanent. she notes with
careful fingers that the scar slashed across his features
suddenly seems sadder and greater than his own body.
a show of verity: god is unforgiving even to innocuous souls.

a pair of two, a duo, waltz in a lull, muffling reluctance and
regret written across shaking hands. in a temporary peace,
a nebulous silence, he holds a promise:
“i’ll be your other good eye.”