involuntarily i pull your chest to my ear listen to the beat i can feel in my thumb wrapped to your arm i think of my limbs impetuous with the veins in your heart ripping through clotting arteries from my jagged self climbing and slipping round your insides tearing at loose ends and tying them in to pretty bows with red velvet ribbon the kind that looks nicer still on satin sheets/the ones i find in your bedroom/the kind that feels like your skin on mine. some strange calm almost like sleeping/i am holding on to every waking moment next to you not to miss a shared beat.

we were bound
tight
by our matching measure
the weight of love
i saw beneath,
loved fool
fully sunk to
every moment
shared
in code.

i couldn't shelter you from the world.

(i tried. i lost).