HEART PRINTS
It happens on a moon-glazed tuesday under the covers of the night, hidden away from sight behind my thin bedroom drapes.
It happens
I hand over to you my entire heart.
Not just a piece, a silver, a slice of angel cake cut thin and neat but the whole of it.
melted icing
candels at the top dripping hot old wax.
burnt charred crust and all.
I place it onto your hands my own trembling like clouds sizzling with lightning in a summer storm, the hollow in my chest-- my empty heartspace -- growing wider
gaping wider
opening more and more.
i have wrapped it
in ribbons
of silk--five of them.
or was it satin?
i can't remember fickle details, slipping past my fingers, slipping my mind like stamped yellowing enveloped slipped past mailbox slots
anyway,
- oh a tingling rippling in my chest.
i would think it is my heart fluttering missing a beat maybe but my heartspace lies empty still.
but oh no, its....
it's my rib they are growing hands from the jagged edges where i snapped them in half only moments ago,
stood in front of my front of my fogged bathroom mirror staring myself in the eyes as i
carved open my chest
and spread my ribs
and now....they....my ribs....they wre growing
fingers
and for nails they grow
more fingers.
fingers upon fingers upon fingers
i can feel them
gouge
and dig
at the burrow from where i tore my chest out, nothing remains there but shreds of muscle maybe.
dangling
winggling
perhaps some arteries some veins blood dripping in gushes from them still
oh well,
the ribbons, yes-
you unwind them softly with careful fingers and i watch just as carefully , my teeth grinding into themselves as they have been denied my fingernails to chew on.
you
unwind
and undo
and i can't help but think of how you will leave
stains
in the form of the prints of your fingertips
your silhouette turns dark
turns to shadow,
forms sinister shapes on the wall behind you, they snicker and sneer and grin and reach to stroke my soft bruised cheek with skinny boned fingers smiling like snake offered fresh meat
fresh kill
the slugs rise in my belly oh god i can feel them slithering
slow
sticky icky
their slime and go dripping off my insides in
strings
thick and luscious, foaming, snotty.
oh god
and now there are
fingers
stroking deep down at the back of my throat
maybe it's my ribs--- my ribs with theirs fingers upon their endless fingers- trying to make a gag
please keep going use another
couple fingers
make me throw up the slug in my belly
oh please
i am retching i am coughing i am so close
i am lurching. up into my throat. they
taste sick
and then
the drapes in my bedroom flutter open and the moon gliters in your eyes, speckles in them like fairy dust, and i am fine.
I see you,
you and your palmfuls of stars and planets and galaxies spread endlessly across the universe.
and yiur eyes of honey gold, melted
like the sun baked fresh out of the oven.
you and your
lips curled artfully around whispers of words that lingers in my ear at night when the shadows in my room creep out from under my bed and i have ni shoulder yo burrow into.
the fingers reel back the slugs crawl back into the ground whence they came, my chest no longer pulses but feels warms cinnamony cidar has been lit inside it
inside its heart
because maybe...
maybe it's alright
maybe i want you,
you with your clumsy dry hands, leaving impressions of yourself in places i keep hidden from the world.
maybe i want you and want you to sewr the whirls of your palms and fingers onto my heart wo they can remain their forever.
maybe i want you and i crave your touch on the delicate thin dermis under my eyes, wt my wrists and stamps.
maybe i want you and i did'nt tear my heart out - it fell out itself the way milk teeth falls from gums, fell past my ribs and my skin into your hands, maybe it's warmer their, its always been cold inside me.
maybe i gave you my heart as a promise not as complulsion
and maybe-
just maybe...
you won't let me stain you- no
you will let me, you will, i know
you will hold my heart between your hands amd let its thin red grape skin drip sour nectar onto your fingers and palms and leave your skin coloured.
cherry and hibiscus
leave my heart
with you
forever
