Bare bones cowering beneath pale skin,
you declared it made me beautiful.
We were condemned
by heavy metal and Tarantino films,
but I never had a problem with that, or the bruises
left in constellations on my thighs from bite marks.
They reminded me of stamps
doled out by dance teachers after class,
and I wore them proudly every morning.

Manic madman freed from jail
laughing, the night you asked me
what I thought the world was spiraling for and
what I thought my cellular composition meant.
A noxious smile slithered up the corners of your face
devising clever ways to determine our compatibility,
and you must have decided that we were.
I held tight to your headboard as it shook
hiding a face flushed red
that you didn't notice, and never would.

Jesu juva

On Easter
you showed me what to do with
pretty white powder
and I became an author, crafting stories in my head
of what I’d tell my mother I spent the holiday doing.
While we were chemically resurrected,
somewhere in the dizzied night
church bells rang, and my grandmother prayed.

“November Rain” at
4am
and even you couldn't erase from memory
the way yellow leaves fell like secrets.
I considered evaporating
but it wouldn't have mattered,
because either way I woke up alone.
Eighteen years of Sundays spent kneeling in perfectly lined pews and still,
I knew nothing of religion before you.

Ignis aurum probat