Hook & Bait

If I could melt beneath your skin

Seep deep within your bone, cradle your skeleton in mine

Carve out a place for myself within your lungs, maybe

Pierce through marrow, in a sweet way

In a loving way

Would you let me?

(Have I said this very line to him? Professed my love in this same, raw and tender way? Will I love you, forevermore? Just as I had, around this time last year?)

I tiptoe

I dance

Stepping in just the same pattern as I have before, reciting lines just as I have before

This time a little more sure, a little more wise

A year was a good lesson

A tender love

—And how I miss him, god, how I miss him

(I think about his every move, in a whisper, I think about the sound of his porcelain heart rattling against my chest)

Yet I tiptoe a dance not unfamiliar, not quite as cautious

And I do wish for you to melt, so that I could gather you in my careful hands and breathe a new life into your spine

Oh, how very entitled

How very wanting

(Can I love you in the way I’d want to?)