Promise Me

Crack my chest open like a tangerine.
I share myself with you the way lovers do.

Do it: split the battered skin open with dirty nails until
blood slides down your fingers like juice.
Lick yourself clean,
savour the taste,
come back for more.

Spurred by a hunger so ravenous
even the most violent creature couldn’t comprehend,
pull the veins away from my heart to
hold it in your hands.

Watch as it beats in your palm,
warm and wet,
like a newborn babe.

Crack off my rib. Crack off two, if you need.
Use the pointed ends to carve out your flesh where it bleeds,
where scabs form over the wounds,
trapping poison inside.

Take what you must from me.
Get it out.

Do whatever you must do to

get
it
out.

Swap my heart for your own,
I beg. I beg and beg and beg.
Transplant my heart into your chest and use my mouth to stop the poison’s spread.
Take the gun from my pocket and slip it in the back of your jeans.
Burn my corpse before you leave.

If you don’t listen to me, I’ll come back and make you.
They said people like us don’t love like they do.
going to prove them wrong.

So you must listen: burn my corpse and carry on living.
Carry on living until you die and do it grey.

You have to promise me.

Okay?