where had it been something like this, something green and smooth like the skin of it, like the slither between the vines and she said nothing of it, she said instead her nails were jagged with remorse and he couldn’t help but pluck the skin off the bumps of his spine and feed it to himself and grow them back out again. the cycle repeats like the sun and the moon and the seasons where the winter chills her bones and his skin cracks open with icicles and while she fingers his veins he plays with the nerves beneath her scalp and she tells him, if it weren’t for the musk we’d have been done with this a long time ago and he laughs caressing her thigh, you lie to me again, he reached up and pulled a leaf that turned from green to red to orange to dead in his hands, let’s lie to each other again.