THE  27Th  EDITIOn

They say that love bites but 

the love bites on my neck say that you love me. 

Maybe, as I bite, chew, and swallow the skin

on my hollow, lovesick hands, you’ll understand

how touching you grows bland

when there’s no love to hold,

when you leave me in the biting cold, 

and I’ll walk home alone…

say I’ll never love you the way I used to

not since you

put out the passion.

We never dance anymore in 

the kitchen or kiss in the pouring rain; 

Nothing can compare to the loving pain 

of the bites you take out of my chest

every time we get undressed.

Instead of biting off your head 

I lay on the bed hoping

that love will rise from the dead,

pick itself up from the grave,

and trudge through the mud,

a slave to the fatal bites that murdered it.

“I love you,” I mutter through gritted teeth,

biting my lip and tongue-in-cheek words.

You bite back, lying with lustful love

calling out to me from above while I drown

in your transparent eyes staring down at the floor, 

instead of the person who adores you

But not for forevermore. 

I used to love the way you said lovely 

When you were looking at me

But now the teeth of your biting words leave bruises on my dreams

Making their way down my cheek, the nape of my neck,

My arms, body, stomach, legs,

So I lie still, gentle, until the blood courses back into the wounds.

I hope our time will be up soon because I simply cannot handle

the burning candle of being

loved and bitten.