See, the first time you locked the bathroom door your heart was so heavy
it took me twenty tries and a crowbar to lift it, and even then
it left bruises on my palms so big an elephant would pale in comparison.
When you were in the bathtub, practicing your drowning skills,
the cool porcelain skin resting against your milk-white thighs,
I caught a glimpse of your right wrist, the steady ladder of red
climbing up the inside, a rung, two rungs, three, fourteen.
Remember when we read about Rome burning, and how some soldiers
held their arms out like sleepwalkers and let the fire come to them,
like lovers? So I took you into the bedroom, sat you down
on the bed, on top of the covers, still dripping with water,
dark hair plastered to the nape of your neck like a Rorschach ink blot,
and brought out the needle and thread.
It went in slow and deep, a cigarette in the mouth
of a dying Roman woman, back and forth, back and forth,
holding your wrist so tight in my hand the circulation shut itself off
like a leaky faucet. When I was done you were all stitched up,
wounds closed, and kissed me naked on the bed,
hard, harder, hardest, as if you wanted me
to fuck all the sad out of you
and make you whole again.
we counted all the bruises on your neck
and the bloodstains on your thighs
and figured out it takes more than getting hurt
to keep yourself alive.
how the hell can i have so many scars
but still be just as eager
to give myself more?