A ---Second part to Lip-Bleed

I once held bleeding lips in high esteem,
echoing their coarse outlines-
the hardened, cracked seams seething with self-induced cynicism
captured in a smile.

Love bound me to my wound and I submitted-
a fornification between chapstick and my own self-
berating myself-soothing myself-trying, in vain, to be more than
myself.

But lips heal as hearts conceal their trade,
as weather sighs and we evolve from subterranean past times
head-deep in delicately-draped scenes set by the rhythm of savage
temerity.

I almost drowned that summer.
Standing-barefoot-on sidewalks.
Standing among strangers and basking in their anonymity.

But sidewalks stand their ground
and cracks lay, unmoving, when I churn against them,
even with toes stripped and bared.
When I crave damp euphoria in dew-
for grass to sink into me -
and let me bounce along to the cadence of the blades.

I bore no great affinity for lovers, then.
The sincere embodiment of them.
With transfixed complexions,
silhouettes eternally etched in exclusivity.

I remained aside their frame of contemplation,
burdened by boundaries of concrete
and the stale blessings of a hired goddess at my altar.

The thoughts-my supplication-
to endure their embraces-
to question---

If I could-would I bear the sacrifice of sidewalks?
Would I abdicate the byways for a bounty, for a blessing?

It is strange that now, among frigid entropy, I sustain--
even mend as I defy her-unfettered, radiant in her dull realm,
despite her urgent but barren caresses.

My lips have healed.
My lips teem with drips of moisture.
My body ripe with renewal.
The beads dancing on my tongue.

I am warmer now in this wasteland
than I ever was in sunlight and bare mid-drift revelries.

I am warmer now, basking within the heat of lovers,
crooning in the crook of his eager embrace.