My Eyes Flew Open, But the Dark Was All To See

You swept through the pantry,
upset the bottles and canisters,
the boxes and jars alike.
You threw it all on the tiled floor,
stirred it about and mashed it to a powder
so fine and sickly-looking no dog would touch it.

It's been two months, you've fed me
a strict diet of salt and iron
washed down with whiskey and midnights;
opening my mouth to fill a belly
used to sugars and processed meats.
You opened my mouth, and blinded my eyes,
purring "It's my heart, it's my heart I'm feeding you,
it's my heart you taste."

And though tastebuds detected something sick,
something dirty, a poison unnameable,
I swallowed out of hunger,
out of starvation.

For it was good at first, the proteins
and the flavor of your tears
had not quite touched my tongue.
But, oh darling, we've reached something rotten,
some blackness of decay.

I don't know what lie she fed you
that such cruelty should come to taste.
I shut my lips, you wrench them apart,
and rust covers all.
I have long known what fear is made of,
it is the first recipe a girl learns,
all oxidized blood and long lost embalmed loves
washed down with gin and sharp movements.

Shall I sputter and spit you out
or shall I keep to swallow,
digest the wretched wreck under the surface
only to vomit back a purity for you?

In a heat like this, only the winter can know.
It is February, there is nothing to eat but you and me
and only the winter can know.