[daniellaaarisen]

Invisible Blood

I was never fully satisfied, chasing you
on heels that weren’t yet broken,
dodging the defenselessness you allowed me to feel
like it was a bullet soaked in a plague.

But this Achilles found her weakness
when something in her ankles snapped
and she surrendered to the ground
apologetically.
I clung to you in spite of myself,
a tendril clasped for dear life
to the understated softness
I never thought you’d unveil.

You work only by the moonlight,
working only with your hands:
silently, I watch you wrap your fingers
around my limbs
like an irrepressible vine,
attend to my reservations
like they belong to your own blood.

Blood—
an indelible tie of which
we can never be fully conscious;
the endless space we make in our womb
where ends don’t ever have to meet.

I’m on this earth to share the bonds
that warm my aching body,
here in skin and bones to watch
all of these bones break,
absorbing all the life you have to give
so that I may one day
give it back to you.