Lip-Bleed, part uno

LIP-BLEED

I never saw how the past creeps up on you-
how it shadows
-my life in action,
mimics the movement
ensnares the feeling,
the thought

I let the words collapse -bury us in entropy
a pile built to cloak the whispers-
to fill with tears left by bitter accusations of a beast.

I was told to be less than empty.
I was told passion was a vacuum for obedience
and I couldn't abide.

So I let my lips bleed
I let the crimson droplets descend
to drip down on insecurities and bless them
on a bed hollowed out by a hunter's blade.

I chewed, could gnaw it down to bone.
To spit out chunks of crinkled lip flesh
after each verbal backlash that severed and scorched and tore me down
to ligaments and sinews and strips of skin.
and now with you-
in you,
I lay mesmerized in memorial to his arrowheads and empty
scabbards.
With you, I am transfixed by pain of bullet holes and scars torn in
time.

When you end the tirades
When we seek solace through unbearable heat
The malice tears and strips and cowers
into something grotesque.

The primal creature within you burns.
And it attacks and picks and scurries under things
As it reopens
As it projects the dark echo of brutality.
It will never cure a chronically bleeding lip.

You are not my prior transgressions.
You are not my fool.
But you must see my shadows.
And understand them.

As the fountain runs dry
Parched mouths back away and hide
within cavities of sentiment.

I want to linger in the pool of thought
and glow among the reeds.

I want calm within our tumbleweeds.
In the core of them, I wish for sanctity among rolling pins
and whirlpools.

I want calm within,
with or without you as my centerpiece.
I want this to end in a river bed of holistic remedies.