‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth. Slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this Lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, becauseīecause I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. You can’t get out of this one, Henry, you can’t get it out of me, and with this bullet It’s in the script, you want me to say Lie down on the bed, you’re all I ever wantedīut I think I’d rather keep the bullet this time. I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you’ve taken something out of me, and I have to searchĭid he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in? I know you want me to say it, Henry, You swallowing matches and suddenly I’m yellingStrike me. Like it’s just another petty theft? It makes me tired, Henry. You look like you’re lying down, but will you let me kiss your neck, baby? Do I have toĭo I have to stick my tongue in your mouth like the hand of a thief, like a burglary I’m pulling you out of the burning buildings and you say I’ll give you anything. I’m battling monsters, half-monkey, half-tarantula, I say I want you inside meĪnd you hold my head underwater, I say I want you inside meĪnd you split me open with a knife. This at least, can’t you? but we both know how it goes. Roll over and let me fuck you till you puke, Henry, you owe me this much, you can indulge me Where I get to say Please, for just one night, will you lay down next to me, we can leave our We’ve made a graveyard out of the bone white afternoon.Īnd we keep doing it, Henry, keep saying until we get it right…īut we always win and we never quit, see, we’ve won again, here we are at the place There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages, I’m bleeding, You never mean it anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed.

Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always savingĪnd you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt. Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk. You keep saying I owe you, I owe…but you say the same thing every time. I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself, I say. You must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours.īut I can’t look at him, can hardly speak,

Keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood, You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just get gone, but he’s You saved my life he says I owe you everything.

Richard siken poems