you make me sick in so many ways. your babe in my womb and your words are still cold. i make myself ill thinking about your indifference and the way you’d touched me like it was love. there’s blood everywhere and bile in my throat and you’re looking at me like we’re strangers now. poison in the water. what should’ve been our first born. even death would be more merciful.

i give up everything to you. bare the line of my neck and open my legs. it’s something sacred, i think, the space between my thighs, and you laugh into my throat as you sink in. kiss my artery like you want to rip it out. do not say you love my singing, darling, this insignificance could make me die.

your sweater only smells like me and my misery. days spent in it wishing it was you touching me. i can barely recall your laundry detergent or the callouses on your fingers and the way your palm fit into the small of my back. it’s for the better, i think, that you’re not here between my legs. i want to lick the sweat off your neck and bite your earlobe. i want to be your lover still.

my pyjamas from when i was five still fit. you look beautiful, my lover says, his nose in the shallow concave of my collarbone, my head tilted to the side. the hem of my cotton slip falling off my shoulder and it’s loose like my limbs and the curve of his mouth. he kisses me and i think of the funny ordeal of being simultaneously bigger and smaller than ever. how my body will never catch up to the worn out threads of a starry eyed toddler. and so i anticipate the moment he takes it off me, the thirst for liberation aching in my throat.