Sharp and Sheening Things

You are a gallery of
sharp and sheening things
encased in shattered glass.

A five-point star set aspin,
slicing through the dark
with your million gleaming edges.

A knifeshow
whose knives
are not for show at all.

Does it please you
to look down on me
from the scimitar curve
of your upturned nose?

To puncture my neck
with the needle-point
of your pinprick kisses?

You grin,
and all I see
is a bed of rusted nails
jutting from your gums,
goring me to stillness
while fingernail scythes
dig death
into my skin.

And how could I forget
the snake-hilt dagger
in your mouth,
forked and glinting,
always poised for its next strike?

Oh,
how you love
to plunge that blade into my back,
slash the corners of my lips,
thrust it through my ribs
to carve shapes
into my heart.

You think you have so much power.

But did you know
they used to call me
sword-swallower
before I escaped from the carnival?

I eat sharp things for breakfast,
lunch
and dinner,
drink razor blades like whiskey,
sighing as they cleave
the length of my throat.

My stomach
is a safe house
of switchblades and scalpels,
shanks and shivs.

What damage can you do
when the metal tang
of your piercing words
lingers on my tongue
like honey?

You are angry,
violent,
a shotgun filled with shrapnel,
a greatsword forged of guilt –

But to me,
my love,
you are
a banquet.

I hope it pleases you
to look into
the hungry hollows of my eyes
and know
that I am

insatiable.

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