The Heart as a Knife

“I'm not human, not in the way you are,”
My crackling voice rings out
Disembodied by paper-thin walls
The door I slammed in your face
I count each breath I take, I gag on my heart
As I try not to cry in front of you again

It’s a slight & monstrous thing-
That ever-pulsating miracle of biology
Unlike what it invokes in my most primal of selves
Besides the strain to keep me alive
It makes my count of how many stars I can
Lace together in your armored eyes
I pull back the steel plate layers & reach inside

1 glance; I am dragged down into that black hole
By your gravitational force, an entity in itself
I would take a look around
& ask how I arrived here, how I can go home
Yet some familiar voice reminds me: I am already there

My heart will swallow all of you
Leaving nothing for anyone else to give or take
Amid it all, the horror of how easily I oblige its demands
Time & time again
Hedonism tightens its iron hold on the reigns
As if chained to fate’s preordained ideals
Best laid plans that I will decimate on purpose
Just to emerge stronger from the rubble

You & I; we are the same
Driven by an unspoken reflex to flee where light won't reach
I have had to deal with your misery,
Your fear of being as prey
Something small, hunted by the bigger man
It’s palpable, glaring at me with eyes alit
As you let it twist & turn you into what you despised

In an act of radical mercy, romantic malintent
You drive the knife through my chest
An inch or two away from the heart
The same part that in brighter days past
Your lips have brushed over, found God in my unfolding skin
Icy metal is no substitute for your unyielding warmth
At least, that is how I remember you

You know well the crumbling defense in me
How I could never say no
To a beautiful thing that wants to kill me
Before I muster the nerve to kill it first