My heart is beating itself to death
I know this, and yet
when I am jolted awake in the grey hours of the morning
by my heart stopping for one beat, two
I feel my own limbs,
squeeze my hips for certainty
The pillows of fat are a promise against willful self-destruction
When my lover rests her head on my chest
she counts the slow, juddering beats
(one
two
three
four five six
seven)
I want to cry at the waste of it all
How was I to know that while I was hollowing out my collarbone like a chalice,
the consequences that awaited me?
I understood the impending disaster as abstractly as modern art,
walking through the gallery of my own demise
and admiring the portraits of half moons on my knuckles like a Rothko
There was a statue of Karen Carpenter in the lobby, but I didn’t pay attention
I broke my own heart over eighteen months
The doctor who’s examining table hurt my bones to sit on
told me that I took ten years off my life
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