Loved

Folk who say it will be the same

when the two of us are done here,

when we part ways for good,

don’t know that we’ve built something,

something worthy of the name ‘love’.

When this love will have run its course

it’ll have nowhere to go, no aim,

and it’ll take way too much room

– it’s grown quite big, didn’t it darling.

So we’ll have little choice but to drown it,

pull it head first down the bathtub

and keep it underwater for a while

– until its lungs fill up and swell

and we need to dry it up 

before we can burn the carcass

– until its legs form odd angles

underneath its slouched body

Darling, maybe we’ll need to tie its hands

so it doesn’t scratch and grip,

– and its feet too, no nasty kicks,

just its belly doing its dance,

and its hair like Medusa’s

– it would be a good idea, we think.

No, we won’t look at its bulging, bloodshot eyes,

or at its snakey, purpley, swollen veins

– for we want to sleep at night, don’t we darling.

Maybe it’s easier to do these things, darling,

because we were selfish and trampled it

with both feet on its chest, caved the ribs in,

and still called it ‘love’, lovingly, 

because we stopped caring as much.

Maybe it won’t fight back when we strangle it,

accepting its fate with open wrists and throat

– we slowly choked it with our lies, didn’t we

– faking interest and orgasms and conversations

didn’t we darling, patient in our rage,

meticulous in our vivisection,

methodical lovers-turned-skinners surgeons.

Folk who say it will be the same

when the two of us are done here,

when we part ways for good,

don’t know that we created and killed

something worthy of the name ‘love’.