emergency maneouvres

put your effort here, on my side;
feel the pulse of some bursting organ there.
inflammation you can feel but not see
and my breath hurts.

in the darkroom, i saw two mirrors
and one was you, and one was me
and i walked shaking across the black marble floor,
emptied my insides out behind the red curtains.
four hours i sat there, smoke signals curling so agonized from my teeth,
my eyes little white illuminated ambulances,
my veins rupturing around the tendons of my wrist
as scrolls of film rolled across the floor.

i wrote you a note, a suicide note,
a desperate breathless love note,
i meant to die to escape the fever,
but you came and found me instead.
so i bit my tongue like a rat-trap,
like a burning obsidian eye,
though you had no use for the blood clotting in my mouth.

But put your interest here, on my side,
and you can feel pain like an imploding galaxy.
vibrant and organic, it will sink four fangs into your finger.