guts & intestines

you were always right

right in the way you parted your hair

buttoned your shirt

uttered my name

you were a spy

so slow and furtive,

I never suspected your presence

or heard your footsteps

until I could never escape 

it’s a slow sort of suffocation 

as I breathe in toxins from underneath your skin 

disease spreads rapidly through my insides

poisoning the blood, eroding the bones

my teeth ache, my lip bleeds

all my guts & intestines

twist tightly into knots 

strangled—there is no cure

and I know that you would see a poem

as a piece of dust  

you were right in the way you kept

me to rot—

the sickness you became

and I, a willing host  

what a way to die!

cut out raw and clean

all that’s left:  

are human remains