VANITAS ― Poetry

x.

apodyopsis.

the first time you did that to me

we were

unripe lovers who knew everything about love

but nothing of how to feel it

two bodies sucked into a black hole

that cracked open nicotine shadows

in the far pristine wall of the most forbidden of sections

it was the death of night. it was the birth of dawn.

it was the end of sunsets. it was the start of quietus.

your hamartia becoming my latria

pearl oyster skin around ivory-colored teeth

the taste of each other trapped between bloodless lips

(are the flames of hell warmer

than the cold between our chests?

or even colder?)

iridaceae flowers blooming in erubescent cheeks

fingers scraping down the spine of a battered book

let me tell you a story, you said,

the tragedy of a summer-scented girl born on the winter change

and dead by the time autumn finally came

the tragedy of a boy born with teeth in his heart

and claws in his hands to gnaw at the stars

(tell me, did God make the sky so you could tear it apart?)

apodyopsis.

you said it was your favorite word

you said the universe was born under my fingertips

and that the black hole between us could give birth to a star

or maybe you didn't say it, maybe it was just

how your hands on my neck made me feel

paraffin eyes lightning red candles in mine

droplets of melted kerosene setting arctic skins on fire

spring arriving earlier to spines made of wood and saffron

you brought war to my door with

bites of sanguinary teeth on gullible lips

you planted vermilion roses on my tongue and left me to bleed

roots of steel and bone growing down to my lungs

so I could not breathe

as you drank down the words of a book

you weren't supposed to be reading

as you drank down the life of a person

who wasn't supposed to be living

(will my heart still pump in your hands

after you rip it from me?)

apodyopsis.

the act of mentally undressing someone.

that's what you did to me, tom,