salt+ceremony

here is my rage: clinging to the negative space of my body like a desperate lover.

and here the blood of the sunrise, pacifying

your ache for violence. you hold down the flesh of the world and

i’ll hold the knife that spills salt. say the word and i’ll do it.

beg for beauty and i will slice the world clean open. beg for violence

and i’ll put on my finest dress. the terror and the allure,

two figures that only intertwine in the stories,

two lovers that only watch each other from across the room. here,

they want each other dead. here they leave your throat bruised purple.

and here my fingers like pink painkillers to strip you of your fury.

through your window a body clings to a body and nothing more. the flesh against flesh, but then the crime scene, the intersection of love and gore at war. i could forget this.

walk away from these scarlet-soaked vexations. there is a journey my limbs

need to take without me. would you stand there and let the fever choke you?

or would you run away from this burning body of mine alongside me?

take away my anger and you have a body. take away my body

and you have a wildfire. if you’re going to flee,

turn your back so the heat warms you one last time.