Cinnamon Tea

You say your lips are bleeding and you can’t tell why.

But there you go, you keep

Licking my heart up from the blade side.

You say you’re burning up, with feverish cheeks.

When your lips bear the stain of liquor,

And your tears crawl down my drain like rancid cinnamon tea.

You say your skin runs cold as the linens fall, unfold... 

But somehow you suppurate warmth, insistent, onto the mattress. 

And you cling to the knife, affection virulent, rife, uninvited.

Violent.

Then you blossom on my skin,

reddened, purple, crystalline.