Poem Inspired By Poor Health And A Broken Rib. Poem by Alison Rosalie

say i was
a cadaver,

(heart still somehow pulsing,
emotions in tact, senses persisting)

could you still bear to caress
my clouding and overcast flesh,
my pale, decaying,
shrinking violet breasts?

would it sicken you to stick
your tongue between black mottled teeth,
to tuck your lips between the onceplump
parting of my volcano crater mouth
with the chance of choking on my blood
or cradling maggots in the curl of your tongue?

if my bones were cracked
at every rigid joint

and my limbs hung
when you held me,
like a ragdoll,
a withering willow tree

would you abandon me,
“for the better of both of us”,
beneath the dirt,

would you simply
bury me?

would you toss me
from your vital clasp
to abandon me in my grave

(one
in
a million

among
all
the rotting flesh
and rattling bones

all the delicate dainty
pretty girls’ faces
you’ve hidden under tombstones)

to disintegrate into the dirt,
grieving for your warmth
and the way it turned cold with me?