Domesticated Violence

They said love was tender, so I offered my throat to your ghost-mouth, let your breath curl into mine— viscous as syrup left out, subject to the shape of its jar. Your bombardment of devotion felt like hail, each for your own good sharpened to a fine mother's edge. A crate arrived that you wouldn’t let me open, labeled not yours, but warm to the touch, and I swear I heard it weeping. When I finally pried it open, the dark inside eclipsed me, but not like the moon— like a father who's sat too close in the pew. No light gets in. No light wants to. I closed it back up before you came in. Then we went to breakfast.