to make healing more bearable

She is all limbs and light,
the curve of her back carved of a thousand filaments.
This is only important because I cannot see her eyes,
hungry for my dissection, as though
there is redemption in either of our confessions.

I have become surgical.
Nowhere near dying, I show my body to the mirror.
Wondering, like red, if desire is worthy of flesh.
How will I know when I am alive?
There is no cure for this idea of freedom.

My ribs are exposed, picked clean by crows.
In my bareness, I dare not touch her.
She fears this more than hell,
more than my malignant need to speak.
I will console her with a million
paper roses along the walls she's built.