Bloodletting
after Ocean Vuong’s “Homewrecker”
—knife meets palm’s edge, steel atop blue vein. Which is to say: this is how we loved.
Red-stained hoodies, weighing ourselves down with jagged stones in pockets—
was this a way to live? Counting chapel spires across a pearlescent sky from the attic window,
green glass bottle cold and broken like the oh my god of a sister who discovers a body—
was this the way to live? Dancing from nooses, seeing how long we could hold our breath before
lungs collapsed. We, low-hanging fruit, waiting for the one thing that would seize joy,
and injecting ourselves when joy was taken. Vodka stinging our throats like frost.
Kneel for me, so I may run my hands in a circular motion through your peppered hair.
You are only 22 years old, which is to say you know everything about alcohol but nothing about
taste. Have you ever kissed with the iron sweetness of blood on your tongue?
Which is to say, your mouth reminds me of my first fight—fist-on-cheek, spitting scarlet and
pieces of bone onto charcoal pavement. I run the knife over my thumb, bloodletting—
First Published in Struggle Mag