hurt

Cut into

prostrate on the floor, I baubled
into your lion-shaped heart
thinking it my own, thinking it
blue and orange, circled by
purple aortic tunnels

prostrate on the floor, wronged,
I traced the sound of it, the words over construction
paper, the hand around my vascular tissues,
the beat that constricted my own, that told me
not to breathe, not to beat so loudly on my own

bent over the bed, I knew the cold
chill of a winter morning when the sun
showed so bright, the lakes melted into sweat and
the arctic died. For you and for your desire,
the world transformed, beached whales and empty bottles

bent over the bed, I would have jammed my life into you
had I known you wanted so long, to be dismembered
by the past, to lose every grain for the dream of a beach,
my hands disappeared for his organ in your blanket. I know
the grains, I hold them, I love them, I breathe.

Prostrate on the sand, I waved goodbye with the winding
wind and you didn’t notice, carelessly tracing the shape
of my lion shape with the knife you’d used to cut it out.
But my heart is no lion and your mind is no knife. We
were waves finding solace in the shore, but instead of forgetting,
falling limply into this moment, I remember the years.