adjacent lover

all of the woman who are poisoned by your print 

declare their love for me

with sapphic intent 

i feel their charged eyes 

pausing on me like prey 

prepared to pick me apart 

and place their pain

paranoia consumes me, 

but i am flattered in a way? 

that she imagine your touch 

being contagious with gold:

though her lust of me is 

from our shared stains

and strings that you pulled 

she imagines me writing poems and crying alone 

puzzled by my processing 

enchanted to crack my skull open as if there is something she doesn’t quite know 

Ode to my adjacent lover,

we can cut the man 

out of the middle 

and i could suck his venom

from your lips 

little by little 

but that is an old taste 

my pallet has outgrown 

i spit out our last kiss 

licking the envelope before sending you home

no saliva remains to entertain 

all of the demented derivatives 

of women possessing your pain