Ribbons

there were ribbons gold
and royal blue in hue
tied in little bows around each rib
some tangled in each other
some ruffled, some bright
all leading like marionette strings
to bows around your fingers

you were gentle at first
you pressed so gingerly
your fingers smooth
I felt only gravitation
toward your wrists and eyes
the ribbons shifting yellow
in the moonlight

but there came moments
when the strain on my lungs grew heavy
and I ached beneath my skin
and a slice of pain sent hairline fractures
feathering down my spine
but I never cried out
not loud enough

so I am not surprised you did not hear me
and did not feel your hands close
on themselves, did not feel
the fists forming
and once you had my ribbons
in your clamped fingers
you yanked

at once I was aflame
ribs cracked in two
marrow seeped through shattered bone
bows became snarled knots
and stuck to maple blood that trickled
down the lines to nestle
underneath your fingernails

and I became a mirror --
you could not see
beyond your face

I watched the toxins fill your eyes
as your light waned
and you hated what you found
you turned from me --
fingers still connected to my slowing pulse
still dragging shards of ivory
and sinew strings behind you --

you turned from me
and I was left with rainfall
and half my body
blown off its hinges

I watched your tears roll down
your cheeks, and you saw
none of mine
siphoning my life force while
mourning the loss
of your own

it follows that I will continue bleeding
on your shirt and breaking blood
vessels one by one
and if I heal
I will not heal straight

there will be shrapnel
and I cannot set the bones

even if you cut the strings
I will keep knotted ribbon
in my veins and twined into
my ribcage, I will keep
pieces of you --
a naked dandelion already wished upon,
a denim shirt,
a star that bears your name --
within me
like pebbles in a scar

perhaps it is my fault
perhaps I should not have tied you
so intimately and tight
perhaps I should have picked
a different body part
on which to fasten the bows
perhaps I should have seen you going

but it is too late now
I will dry your tears
with my torn shirt
I will kiss your cheeks
with my cracking lips
I will wrap you
in my broken arms

I am cursed
to love you
with a dying heart

your light will be
the darkness of me