beat the same

your new big heart is beating in my bed and against my chest 

filling a dent in my mattress, shaped like your absence. 

it was nice of you to show up, but I don't know if you
noticed that your side of the bed
was taken

my God it was and it is 
still dripping red and fucking hell you are 

sleeping in it how did you miss it? 
you are colorblind


or, blind.

it must be beautiful to think this could work.

to share our lives and build beautiful things

out of this beautiful thing you're saying we've

always had. perhaps you see it a red, red rose, 
perfect from years of healthy pruning?


I do not see that. 


you know, 
it's been tough since the  great flood of  

"always" and "beautiful," 
when I bled a color they don't teach in preschool
because is not a color for
things that

make it 

look at you.
your heart is beating and you do not 

seem to understand how red this is so hand me 
your new big heart, 
that thing in you that believes in things that are
always beautiful and i want you
to you want to understand and you
do and  I'm not 
gonna 

lie   I   would never    
lie
to       you      I       
WILL     
WRING 
IT.      


With piano wire, I WILL STRANGLE YOUR RED, RED MUSCLE 
I WILL 

GUT IT so help me God 
will help me hold it together as 
I throw what we've always had into some sharp 
churning machine that the night shift butcher forgot to turn off 

and you'll sleep there.


every morning, you will wake up in blood.

it's weird how your heart works when it's removed,
it might freak you out at first, when it

beats. And it hurts,
but you won't have it in you, 
you don't have the 
heart to 

kill it and still in your sleep, you'll carve every word 

of the thousands you've written without me

on every clod of skin hanging from your bones,
begging yourself to have mercy and deeper, 
deeper is never as deep 
as the pen needs to go
to make you stop.

I will not see you creep from her bed to wash the blood off in the morning.
I will not see you crawl from her bathroom, 
raw from bleach and lye, reeking of vinegar, white as a ghost 
and shaking like a junkie in detox

when I sink into your mattress, 
you will cry with her as it sinks into your bones like ink into skin
your heart will beat faster and the blood 
when it is still red 


you will question what has always been there