Post-for-post: Scalpels and Sibilants

Entry three of my post-for-post with my friend Patrick (link to come when he gives me his). This one's a creepygory love poem. Been a while since I've written one of these. <3

--

Scalpels and Sibilants

When I slice you open,

I will do it with neat lines; I have the scalpel ready

to peel away the layers of tissue and skin,

slowly

revealing

muscle and bone.

When I have you alone,

I will open you wherever you feel you are poor or thin.

I want to catalogue your every part,

cover over your scars with other, better scars.

Your eyes are jellyfish; your pupils, distant stars;

I want to taste the raw flesh of your heart.

You devastate me, deadlier even

than arson or arsenic,

than atom bombs or time;

I want to know what makes you tick,

dissect the clockwork of your brain;

I want to forget my handkerchief inside your spleen,

monogrammed with my initials, so there is something in you

that is mine and only mine.

How could you ever think that you are plain

or ordinary, when you are

permanently perched somewhere between

mundanely mad or maddening, obscene?

It is obscene how I've fixated

on whatever is in you,

your capillaries, sinews,

and anything that is vaguely related

to the anatomy of my affection;

I cannot pass the cooking section

in the supermarket without staring at the knives,

deciding which one to buy for you, only for you;

it will never touch food, unless you are food,

unless we eat the fabric of our very lives,

raw, red, and dripping from lip and tongue and tooth:

your flesh and mine will be the only truth.

and that,

my love,

cannot be understood.

--Puck Malamud

Fri, 16 March 2012