To be consumed by my own reflection,
     how the spoon cracks the bone, shattering to
     its hollow depths the worn patina of
     ancestral china, heirloom pottery
     fragmented after soft centuries of
     neglect in a mere moment of contempt—
     how self-satisfying is my sickness,
     throwing down hard my peace of silver on
     hearing your words, their brazen cautery
     of dilemma burning my ears as an
     ounce of frigid sherbet disappears, mixed
     flavours of exchange lessening in taste
     and civility as your lips sweat their
     contraband honey devilishly out
     onto my unuttered fears, confirming
     them all en masse, each doubt of mine stark white,
     virginal, bright as a catechumen,
     receiving from such a sacred host a
     rape of a chaser no more chaste than an
     untranslatable page of Saint John’s dark
     Revelation—your harsh ‘I don’t love you’—
     how its unsolicited serving rings
     through the cavern of our museum-mute
     dining room, how things take on new meaning—
     having had none—how wicked is the burn
     of your prophetic tongue, its heresy
     painted like truth, tarted up in truest

Magdalene-musk, reeking of desert-rose,
     damask dripping crimson, burgundy-drenched
     conundrum calling out to me, selling
     something that I don’t want; to hear this, and
     over dessert, after dinner in the
     silent famine of which your very thin
     presence withers, you choose to sever my
     embrace, claiming you don’t love me, when we
     both chew on the truth, that yes—yes, sir, love
     me you do—but it is your sickening
     execution sentence of lingering
     indecision with its ignored wound, its
     incision spreading wide the vulture wings
     of our pairing’s doom—your impending shame
     taking from culture, from our shared future,
     the possibility of a shared name—
     and since you cannot stoop to ponder that
     dangerous What If, you maim us, taking
     from my existence your face, lifting with
     that mask every ripped vein, pulling me
     apart like a canvas, thread by thread, string
     by string, such that I am become the frayed
     ruin of a masterpiece; a ball on
     your floor, bawling ropes not of come, but of
     tears torn from this soul you’ve undone, I lie
     jerking onto your feet, more claws than calm,
     drawing me to scrawl this poem, taking

its place among bald lions, my epic’s
     pre-empted triumph falls to your total
     denial of us, eschewing what once
     was, decrying what might have been in a
     sigh of loss, exhaling wind—abandoned
     conviction—silence evacuating
     and evidencing the existence in
     my heart of all connection to your plot,
     spitting up what I thought would never have
     needed to be bled, so, sir, statuesque
     as you are, are you as fragile as this
     saucer is, crushed under the weight of a
     flamer? Will it take you centuries to
     reappear once shelved, long ignored, unheard,
     and suffering under seven veils of
     dust—each layer a generation of
     ungrateful heirs, children borne not of us,
     but childish impudence—each particle
     a neglected prayer to some household god
     unaware of the disastrous damage
     such damned idolaters as you cause and
     dare to inflict on ideals your bloodline
     failed to impart—will you sound a wail when
     I no longer lick your rim, emptying
     your bed as I have your bowl of the sweet
     thing which filled it, which you once said made you
     want me more than you wanted it? Carnage

entangled in tendrils of unspun thread,
     how your terror of admitting we’re one
     has caused our sudden companionship’s rich,
     bespoke garment to come undone—naked,
     humiliated, skin forsaken by
     reactionary alienation, how
     shaken, sir, has your commentary left
     my mind, its stained glass orb a universe
     now disturbed—taking hostage my Ego,
     Superego, and Id, every pose
     of my immortal posture sacrificed
     to the third eye your blankest stare shoots deep
     into their heads, and how carnage causes
     one to contemplate that disastrous What
     If, as if prophecy replaces an
     apology, though neither from your lips
     will ever be uttered, but by your lips—
     that one quip—my own have been smothered, my
     mouth a discarded lion cub skinned by
     its ravenous mother, murderous as
     a lone-wolf raven crying, inciting
     a riot of unquiet beasts to eat
     of themselves and each other—Christ-like in
     its horror, love is a cannibal thing,
     fucking over whomever its thieving
     appetite can’t devour, since dignity
     always makes for such a delicious treat.