and in my dream she comes to me, naked and pristine, one side of her ribs cracked open, a shattered window, a gaping hole where her heart would have been and she smiles brilliantly like happiness and i break into a million pieces because i am holding her heart in my own hand and the blood is thick and slick in my fingers and i have to grip it even harder lest it escape, restless, hot and wild, this magnificent muscle, and there she was bleeding out of her heart and out of the wound and i walk up to her and with my other hand, to try to to stem the flow and suddenly she touches my chin and brings my mouth to hers, her kiss, tongue and teeth and lip, and i falter, i ask,
“am i your weapon?”
and i fall to my knees with my head against the concrete and i slam against it but it isn’t hard enough, i cannot beat my skull in fast enough to match the beat of her heart, just this pathetic wet sound of skin having been broken but the bone too stubborn to break and she kneels beside me and caresses my hair and does not ask me to yield, i turn to her and shove her heart back into the wound, scraping it, damaging it yet again but i can not hold it anymore, i skin my knuckles with the effort, bite off the sides of my tongue, but shards of ribs trap my hand, slicing around my wrist as i twist and tug and find myself relieved to see i am spilling open into her, i can see the marrow, i see myself laughing and she touches my cheek and i am not afraid, i am so utterly lost and hopeless, and she whispers,
“no. i am yours.”