It’s in the way we bloomed together
and in the way that we fell apart:
Wound tightly and scraping against the softest parts
as we’d claw and lick and sting to soothe.

All that’s left now are the ugliest parts.
The looming shadow of two naked vultures
circling each other in anticipation,
plucking out feathers to keep warm
as we choke on the air we once shared freely.

In dying,
I’ve torn apart the twisted ropes that held our stems together.
In killing,
you’ve ripped me open and watched me bleed into you,
mixing disease with desperate and prickling tongues.

The night that you clung to me in apology,
I dreamt of living in your skin.
Crawling deep into your belly
to place my ear by the parting in your ribcage
and hear your heart beat from the inside.

Perhaps this is domestication,
siamese in a tumored symbiosis,
both existing and not inside a radioactive box.
For how long can we be both dead
and alive?