when you first met me, you held my hands.
i held your hands back and we both
squeezed the other’s skin so
tight we cut off our circulation. but it’s okay,
it was okay because i bled into you and you
bled into me and who needs
pesky fingers anyways? just awkward,
useless little things that get in the way of us
being joined at the wrist and becoming
after a little bit, you let up your grip. you
loosened your hold on me just enough
that your knuckles went back from white
and you took your nails out from
under my skin and frowned when you saw my
blood had dried underneath them.
but i was still holding on tight, holding on
for dear life and why were you letting go?
you weren’t, you weren’t letting go, you just
wanted to let the blood flow back to my bones,
but they were brittle and broken now and
my fingers were only little stubs and when you
let up your hold on me, my skin turned white
and red and you never really liked those
and you did not care for the way i still
clawed at your skin with the knives of bone
you cut for me. you did not like how you bled
and how i bled on you, even though you caused the
wounds that were now cycling back to the source.
i wanted to stop bleeding, i really did. i wanted to
stitch back on my fingers and
interlock them with those of another,
but a part of me still wondered if
maybe we could go back; if we could go back to
looking each other in the eyes and saying
“i love you” and waiting until our skin grew
over itself and into one. it won’t happen,
i realize that, now that we’re both slipping away.
but another part of me wondered, just a little bit,
if maybe you felt the same.
you never said, you couldn’t have said,
but tell me why, then, through the blood and
that you never once moved
