“All I need is you”
“I can’t ever give you what you need”

It was the first time I became aware of my heart stopping
- sedated and still.

Banging away in my metal-rimmed ribcage, it was silenced.
Glistening with diamonds
That no one wanted to buy.

I’d never had so many words to say
And so little breath to say them

Or a mouth that said so little.

I won’t let this break us.

Undefeated I want to rise from your ashes and spit out
cheek bones like chalk dust.

You leave a taste in my mouth that’s bitter; dark chocolate,
Edwardian poetry, rainy afternoons

Yet all we could do was argue.

If I won; I’d leave with petrol fume scars,
Your skin between my elbow joints,
Trapped between eyelids.

And it was like-
If I could pick my eyelashes from your fingernails
and wrench the diamonds from your ribcage
that, half assed, eyes closed,
you’d muster the strength to lift your head and whisper
“I’m sorry.”