What if there’s only rot inside her?

I beckoned you closer, knowing truth:
you’d only find worms inside of my ribcage—bearing fruit.
But maybe, to you, they’d look like art —
strings of writhing secrets screaming,

let me crawl up your arm:
a serpent’s psalm —
circle your lap
trace your lips
let me be the mouth that whispers over your hips.

Did I think you were that far gone?
For me? For me??
If I denied it, the lie would persist —
only in death do we remember what we missed.

Certain of shakiness, I’ve always been.
You can’t strike gold without splitting skin.

We’re not so different —
you’d crown a corpse and call it chaste.

love is a mirror for the monstrous,
and rot wears your face.

Blood within, spoils splattered out,
my name curls on your tongue
seeps down your spine —
what’s yours to keep, and which bone is mine?