She loves me

“jumpstart from dreaming non-sense,

fool” she said, weaving her fingers between his arm and abdomen

and  pressing them against his chest until he had wrested the blood from her fingernails with his unrelenting grip.

lines and forms carved themselves between her skin and his.

tones and textures.

created the subtle separation of their bodies

cemented the masquerade once again

in panic.

she thought over his warning: “the stakes are too deadly,”

remembered the striking sound of fear

melting out of lips familiar usually with mortality, and then she ran

her breath down the layers he had since mapped out

protected flesh and abscessed guts

fill material. the crawl of desire once wrenching

itself upon her skin in suspended touches.

deadened.

they had already dismembered their willingness in faint

tones and reinforcing steel.

his bluster. her

mourning break down.

both disgraced

into unconvincing paralysis

&  imperative grace.