An incurable, rushing fever — eyes: wild — an insistent rosey bloom seeping out from the heart, an oozing fungus assimilating the nervous system while contagious delerium infects the lymphatics. This is the position of lovers, number 38.
Sinking into pools of their own flesh, melted in the heat of their fevers, they scramble frantically, clawing one over the other to keep themselves from drowning.
Sometimes, fearing the malnourishment of the other, one, rearing up, peels away their dewey skin to reveal their soft pink underneaths. Thankful claws tear at the belly, ravaged chunks gummed and swallowed half-chewed. Fingers sink in up to the last knuckle, slipped between the others ribs.
Sometimes, the hair will be gripped, and, reluctant at first, the scalp resigns itself to giving way, uprooted like a tenacious weed and greed teeth chew meatball sized hunks of brainmatter. Syrupy brain fluid, spilling over the top of the skull, forms runnells at the temples. Thirsty lips will suck them there and trace their length from the source to the estuaries formed at the collarbones.
I’ve littered little nothings, scribbled on scraps, like bread crumbs, behind me. They will not take you home. They lead you to a witch’s candied house where I will bake you, and enjoy each nibbled morsel.
The only warm thing in the bed is the cat,
and I’m laying awake
struggling with the sheets
on the brink of this hole in my heart
and in my head
and next to me in the bed.
My wife says she needs some space.
Not just space to breathe,
or space to think,
or space to be,
but enough space for someone else to climb on top of her,
enter when she’s begging them, “please,
I want you inside of me.”
….I’ve been wanting to tell you this for days, but I’ve been trying to hold everything back to give each of us a little space, but especially you ‘cause I want you to be happy, but I really miss you. I still think about you all the time, and whenever I call, it’s just an excuse to hear your voice….