Underbelly

Wouldbelove, do not think of me as a whetstone

until you hear the whole story:

In it, I’m not the hero, but I’m not the villain either

so let’s say, in the story, I was human

and made of human-things: fear

and hands, underbelly and blade. Let me

say it plain: I loved someone

and I failed at it. Let me say it

another way: I like to call myself wound

but I will answer to knife. Sometimes

I think we have the same name, Notquitelove. I want

to be soft, to say here is my underbelly and I want you

to hold the knife, but I don’t know what I want you to do:

plunge or mercy. I deserve both. I want to hold and be held.  

Let me say it again, Possiblelove: I’m not sure

you should. The truth is: If you don’t, I won’t

die of want or lonely, just time. And not now, not even

soon. But that’s how every story ends eventually.

Here is how one might start: Before. The truth?

I’m not a liar but I close my eyes a lot, Couldbelove.

Before, I let a blade slide itself sharp against me. Look

at where I once bloomed red and pulsing. A keloid

history. I have not forgotten the knife or that I loved

it or what it was like before: my unscarred body

visits me in dreams and photographs. Maybelove,

I barely recognize it without the armor of its scars.

I am trying to tell the truth: the dreams are how

I haunt myself. Maybe I’m not telling the whole story:

I loved someone and now I don’t. I can’t promise

to leave you unscarred. The truth: I am a map

of every blade I ever held. This is not a dream.

Look at us now: all grit and density. What, Wouldbelove

do you know of knives? Do you think you are a soft thing?

I don’t. Maybe the truth is: Both. Blade and guard.

My truth is: blade. My hands

on the blade; my hands, the blade; my hands

carving and re-carving every overzealous fibrous

memory. The truth is: I want to hold your hands

because they are like mine. Holding a knife

by the blade and sharpening it. In your dreams, how much invitation

to pierce are you? Perhapslove, the truth is: I am afraid

we are both knives, both stones, both scarred. Or we will be.

The truth is: I have made fire

before: stone against stone. Mightbelove, I have sharpened

this knife before: blade against blade. I have hurt and hungered

before: flesh

against flesh. I won’t make a dull promise.