#nosebleednetwork

[inkstained]

- (j)

[inkstained]

dont hold a knife to my throat if you don’t intend to kill me. 

that was what i meant to say, that day, when you told me about your family & your fears & your dreams about the future & you pressed the wrong side of the blade against my neck.

blood on the grass, blood on your cheek. i won’t tell you that you’re pretty. i know the song that you’re singing. i’ll hurt you back, i know it. 

blood on the grass, blood on your teeth. you’ll tear at my heart but you won’t swallow it. im sick of the song that youre singing. i’ll hurt you back, goddamnit.

i keep chasing the crows away but they keep coming back. i’m a twitching body, still, but not quite a dead one yet. (i told you not to hold a knife to my throat if you don’t intend to kill me.) someone’s pressing their hand to my leaking faucet of a neck and im gurgling blood like a baby, im gurgling your name like a fool. i wont leave you my bones to come back to.

- (j)

[inkstained]

i. dusk

remember when i chased you along the shoreline?

and you turned back & looked at me,

sand between my toes to sand beneath your feet,

& i swore i would never feel this way again.

(i was chasing the sun. oh, i was chasing the sun.)

ii. night city ride

you, you, you -

haloed by the moon; tonight the city is godless.

the wind rips away our softness & leaves us

bare-teethed, bones jutting.

(i’ll sand off my edges until i fit into your ribs.)

iii. secret

i crush it under my tongue - choking on the

bitterness, trapping it in my mouth. (you, you, you.)

maybe tomorrow i’ll ask about the blood on your knees, but for now the wind carries our laughter away into a little cave by the sea & we can be still.

we can be still.

- (j)

[inkstained]

and we meet two blocks away from the end of the world -

you with salt on your tongue & the last shard of light between your teeth.

i say absolution, one final song, absolution, grass tangling between our toes, absolution, one last dance, absolution, stars spinning above our heads -

(i say absolution, absolution, absolution - better late than never.)

and we watch the world end with our legs dangling off the roof under a trembling tapestry of pinhole constellations, tiles digging into our thighs.

now i am become Death, says the man on the balcony. 

(maybe we are simple creatures after all.)

and we chase our shadows the way cats chase their tails.

and some guy with a megaphone is shrieking about clay figures in his garden.

and in the end, says the voice on the radio, there is no great wash of light, no destroyer of worlds - humanity devours itself. 

(i suppose there is something to be said here about things coming full circle.)

and we stand shoulder to shoulder, cradled by the scorched ribs of the city,

divine because we made it so. 

i’d trade apples & honey for this. i’d trade gardens bathed in moonlight for this.

i tell you i’ve dreamt of angels, fingers smudged with light.

(absolution, absolution, absolution - maybe they’ll build a better one this time.)

- (j)

[inkstained]

and we meet two blocks away from the end of the world -

you with salt on your tongue & the last shard of light between your teeth

i say absolution, one final song, absolution, grass tangling between our toes, absolution, one last dance, absolution, stars spinning above our heads -

(i say absolution, absolution, absolution - better late than never.)

- (j)

[inkstained]

and this, again: head shoved beneath the surface

(not the first time, no. but i still choke. water still burns my nose.) 

a knee-jerk reaction: teeth gravestone-heavy on my tongue

(so what’s the diagnosis, doctor? will i learn to breathe underwater?)

a mantra: keep your head down, don’t make a sound

(is this it? must i learn to settle for this?)

a liminal space: nails gouging makeshift gills into the sides of my throat.

(a puddle of water in my cupped palms - drink, they say, so i drown instead.)

- SURVIVAL THEORY (j)

[inkstained]

in some version of this story we barrel head-first into a dying sun.

in this one i nudge the clock off the bedside table just to make the world stop spinning but it doesnt so i nudge my feet off the bed and hope for the ground to be soft.

in this one my heart rattles so hard it stains my ribs and i swallow all the words that swell in my throat. 

in this one i picture all the ways this could go and all of them end with you saying you’re bored but i’m not your kind of interesting.

in some version of this story we barrel head-first into a dying sun, but it is not this one -

in this one i am a coward & you are a fool and we slow-brew casual conversation about weekend plans & the weather because it’s easier and 

in this one we are unmoving and staring at our feet and the goddamn sun is still dying.

- (j)