I’d rip out my lungs
so you could nest inside
my chest cavity.
You can sleep and dream
under my rib cage and use my
weak heart palpitations as a noise machine.

Listen to the blood bubble and rush
through my veins
and use its warmth to make your
eyelids soft and lazy and you can
stretch your legs out into my abdomen.

Let your head rest sweetly,
your hair sweeping long across the organs
I’ve spent my life destroying through
bouts of liquor moments and
you’ll find if you look up,
there will be alcohol spilling from my
tear ducts like a toxic waterfall.

Darling, I ask only that you don’t
use my intestines as a noose and
instead whisper in my cheeks that
the view from my own eyes looking out is
wondrous,
like in the belly of a submerging ship,
like the gardens of a pharaoh,
like the outlook from Mulholland Drive when it is
clearer out than a wine glass
fresh from a dishwasher.

Use my spine as a ladder and climb into my skull.
Listen to the sounds that beat around and echo,
now that I can finally prove you are the
song that’s made a home inside me.
Sing it back to me in a whisper while my
synapses fire and you become
a permanent place in my memory.

Burrow deep into the marrow of my bones,
open up a book and rest your feet up on my carpals.
Let your words drip into my dreams where
we are dancing to the music of my
stomach grumbling while using a small light
from my mouth as a disco ball.

Oh, how easy it would be to sleep at night
knowing that you’ve had adventures inside me,
that you’ve traveled and seen the things that
I haven’t seen,
the parts that make me.
That you’ve been to the core of me and
still ask if you can stay.

03/06/2014

Posted on 03/06/2014
Copyright © 2024 Jared Orlando