I can't love you anymore.
You turned my heart gangrene and left me open, splayed, sanguineous. My crimson halo stained the floor, kept growing as the glow fled from my cheeks, and I forgot to breathe. You wouldn't do it for me, you just stared as I grew colder. All the while I thought I felt your hands above my chest, compressing. One and two and three and four... But they weren't there. And you weren't there. I sucked my thumb and rested on the cool linoleum while strangers did their best, resuscitating. You turned and left the room. You turned and left.
I rose an ashen phoenix, red and dripping, newly hatched and vital. People all around were soaked and breathless from the effort. I fledged toward the door and checked for far too long before I slid the deadbolt down. An act of sore brutality. The spreading of new wings. You'd been slow to leave once you saw how far the step dropped from the threshold. When I slammed the lock I clipped your finger in the jam. It hurt and you yelped, but for once I wouldn't kiss it better through the gap. Couldn't lick your swelling wounds while someone else got all the rest of you. I heard you whispering under the crack where the draft drifts in that you love me. You love me. I know that you do. But I can't forget the sound of the blood rushing out and down, not round and round through my eardrums and arteries. Inside my veins I hear my own name but the sound of the splat and shape of splash all spell out yours. Just yours.
So I can't love you anymore.

10/27/2008

Posted on 10/28/2008
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