𝔪𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔨𝔞

His flesh was weak. A flimsy, milk-fat scaffolding wrapped around a network of tremulous, pulsating failure. But so was mine. His breath was an infant’s whisper against the collapsing architecture of my ribs, each syllable a maggot burrowing deeper into the marrow, tickling, tickling. The innocence of a kiss—against the devouring pit of my gums. The faintest graze of fingertips in the pulsing, fevered delta of his vulnerability. There was a heart there, somewhere, thumping, pleading, not just for me but into me, onto me, into every crevice where hunger pools and festers.