hematophagy (poem)

i swear i know when to stop.

image source: pinterest

i’ve been going through my google drive trying to make poems out of random lines i’ve thrown in there over the years and abandoned. when i opened the document for this poem, i had several of stanzas started or finished but needed to fill in the middle. this piece is built on sticky summer vibes and the idea of not being able to stop scratching mosquito bites as a metaphor for people falling into old and harmful patterns. it can mean whatever you want it to - whether it’s about a friendship, relationship, or something else entirely is up to you.

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hematophagy

i crash into you like summer sweat
dripping down your spinal column
a broken fever dream in mid-july
remembered only by the imprint
of leather on the back of my thighs
where synthetic separated from skin.
it all lasts a heat lightning second:
the electric air, your cotton candy breath,
and my blood humming in your ears
while we speed down dusty roads
leaving nothing behind us,
seeing nothing up ahead
for all the dirt in my eyes
and the lies in your mouth.

[then summer is gone as fast as it came
and you without a trace.]

i don’t believe in second chances but
i’m calling you for a third time without
a forethought after downing a fifth
of something bitter that slides down
chemical and comes up hazardous waste.
i don’t consider the consequence of
feeding into this compulsion
to satiate the gnawing in my bones.
i swear i know when to stop,
and swear i won’t let it kill me.

[my veins more blood than alcohol,
i’d kill you if you’d stayed.]

come midwinter,
you’ll fade into dormancy
until the summer solstice
when you follow
the sound of the bloodhum
that calls you back to me.
it never does matter how much
self-control i say i have,
when the histamine rush hits
i always excoriate the skin
for the sake of killing the itch.

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