It’s in the way we bloomed together
and in the way that we fell apart:
Wound tightly and scraping against
the softest parts as we’d claw and lick
and sting and soothe.

All that’s left now are the ugliest parts.
The looming shadow of two naked vultures
circling each other in anticipation,
plucking out feathers to keep warm as we choke
on the air we once shared freely.

In dying I have torn apart the twisted ropes
that held our stems together. In killing you
have ripped me open and watched me bleed
into you, mixing disease with desperate and prickling
tongues.

The night that you clung to me in apology,
I dreamt of living in your skin. Crawling deep
into your belly and placing myself at your very centre.
If I could hear your heartbeat from the inside,
would it be enough, then?

Perhaps this is domestication,
siamese in this tumored symbiosis,
both existing and not inside a radioactive box.
For how long can we be both dead and
alive?