team-building head wound exercises
there is a thorn in your left eyelid
you are trying to ignore it, to move your eyes slowly
(you tried to peel it free, to unfold skin and bleed away from your mouth)
and now there are pieces of thorn and skin caught under your nails
as the half of a conversation that belongs to you starts drowning in personal fluids
(but see, there’s this shrapnel-wound pissing blood down your face)
(and you’re pretty sure the red-rimmed man frowning at you helped put it there)
mouth dry and aching on the copper caught up in your teeth
(it’s coming from your busted tongue)
(you bit into it to stop it from skinning him, to remind yourself of patience)
(to needle as much of your hand into his mouth as you could fit and rip)
the thorn is working itself into your eye with every blink, every breath and twitch and flinch
and the further it gets the less of you remains beneath it
(the core of your person seems to have been built mainly of keening violence and you’re not sure how you’re supposed to feel about that)
he is saying something, under the roar of blood and panic welling up in your jaw
it looks measured, and designed to calm wild dogs, and if you could bite him about it you’re pretty sure you would
but there is not much of your head remaining
that doesn’t feel like you took a couple flights of stairs the fast way
(and if you got your mouth around his forearm, his right ear, his throat)
well, you don’t know that you’d be able to let go
there is so much blood lining your face it has started to slip under your gaping collar
and under the pain there is again frustration
at the destruction of something you’re kind of fond of, actually
(and the whole time you’ve been staining one of your better shirts and holding yourself together for the sensitive pallets of god and country)
(there’s been this tight-jawed monkey suit blinking disapprovingly)
and in one, beautiful, furious moment, recognition sparks
and you are alight in perfect clarity
(shuddering head-wound notwithstanding)
you have not been able to parse his face for the last ten minutes
but there was something in the way he looked at you
the cocky loom of a man who has never had his face bounced off a guardrail
(the press of his mouth, like he’s caught sight of a spider he’s failed to kill for the third time in a hour)
and you’ve remembered how badly you would like to throw him into highway traffic
so your mouth drops open, and you lash your teeth to soft meat and orbital sockets, respectively
and smile with the kind of warm invitation given to loved ones and mealworm
that he might bring himself before you, wary distaste rolling off him and still moving forward
(the ambush predator lurking in your jaw watches the proceedings with all the grace of a child on their birthday)
(i am weak-willed and unfit to hurt you, you promise, with everything but your mouth)
(i am nothing if not your timid serf, my large eyes are all the better to see you with)
(i don’t bite i don’t i don’t i swear i do not crave the yield of your pulse in my mouth)
there is a thorn in your left eyelid, and it is excruciating
it is about to be someone else’s problem
