The Wandering Saylor

At your feet

Would you breathe

Life back into my lungs

Or leave me

Clawing at your jeans

Gasping for air

While you watch

Head tilted

Pupils dilated

In feral fascination

I should have known

Better

You’ve killed so many

Parts of me

Before -

Those kinds of amputations

I feel them still

When those empty spaces ache

Conjuring a phantom

Of what has been

And I’m left

Haunted

With grief tightly wound

around my throat

While Love lies naked

And alone

Rotting on your hardwood floor.

- Death becomes me.

Across your teeth

Do you still taste me

Do I linger there

Like the tobacco on your sheets

Like the sticky sweetness

Between my legs

Dripping from your fingers

Can you still hear me

In the melody of that song

You used to love

Used to love

like you loved

Tracing my freckles and scars

Naming them as new

And glorious

Constellations

Burning fire

Etched into pale skin

Luminous like the forgotten moon

Used to love

Like you loved

Kicking me in the stomach

When I was already bleeding out

On the floor

Of your sad studio apartment

In some lonely city

Whose godforsaken name is always

Lodged in my throat

When it rains.

Do you still feel me

When her face is between

Your legs

Worshipping at your altar

While you stare at the ceiling

Speaking in tongues

When you hold your hands

Too close to the flaming coils

On your stove top

Craving to climb inside

Their heat

Because it reminds you

Of being kissed

By my fire

When you light

Your morning cigarette

And watch it’s smoke

Trail off

Into the soft glow

Of a fresh urban dawn

Like when we used to laugh

On your tiny balcony

As if we had some grand secret

And knew every answer

To questions

We hadn’t even asked

Yet.

Dripped from your lips

Velvet soft like honey

Slow and sticky like sin

In the summer heat

As the stars in your eyes

Began to fall - violent

Streaks of light smeared

Across the milky twilit sky

While my last words

Whisper soft

Snaked slowly around

your throat

“Choke for me darling”

Because you made me

Hold my breath for years

“Have you had enough now?”

And for the first time

I realize

That love

should never feel

Like drowning.