i decide who eats in here
and off what
wash my feet with your tongue
instead

lower

don’t look up
until i’ve decided
you’ve earned a face

show me where it hurts
i’ll press harder

i don’t tend wounds
i interrogate them
until they confess

i’ve made grown things genuflect
and call the floor
a benediction

your hand finds my collar
pull the halo tighter
around my neck

there

make a sacrament
of the pressure
watch the body that runs the room
go still beneath your grip

i give you coordinates
carotid
breath
the small architecture
that keeps me here

i could end this
with one syllable

i don’t

our tongues wrestle
and i taste rot
i don’t pull back

whatever is ruined in you
recognizes
its taxonomy in me

we spoil
at the same rate

only in your waters
do i permit myself
anything resembling holy

everyone else pays
for proximity
you
i go under for

don’t mistake that
for victory

i buckled the collar myself

here
my throat
pull tighter
good

now you know who let you