All My Friends are Dead
After "the ritual" by Olivia Gatwood
everything about this song is red,
your wallet is brown,
the brown a burgundy
and the burgundy’s chalice
has gold to dazzle
rubies, carnelian, sard
precious, semi-precious, the same-
all the same, feel the same
when you hold the cup to livid lips
and send them on their merry way
bumping into the ugly ridges
of a throat lodged
with stingy agate,
oh but you know that
and here we are,
anyway.
all my friends are dead, he says
dying to kiss his wrist goodbye
to be the soil those plantars indent,
they open their mouths slick with sweat
and pray for a lick, a step, a graze of grime
wanting the must, the aftertaste
to kill them, to fill them, to fix them
he won’t love them still,
and believe me-
I know that
yet here we are,
anyway.
all my friends are dead, I say
but you kiss my heart instead
tongue and teeth and saliva tinged red,
lapping at the candied apple
like a dog, like an animal, like you know already
that it’s the best thing I’ve ever had.
you chew and chew and chew and chew
like a nursery rhyme, like a children’s story,
like the poetic justice I do not deserve
you spit out the core
at the heel of my foot
and don’t bother
a peck farewell.
I know how this story goes:
I say I want it to stop hurting,
so you turn my face away from yours
when you bash my head against the wall
I say I want some consequences,
so you rub your red into the wounds I got
from crashing my daddy's car
I say I want you to kiss me,
so you cover my mouth with your hand,
when you push another gaping hole in my body
I say I want a friend,
and you stop your damn chewing.
caution. warning. stop. proceed
only when you can register
what you asked for
that's not what we're here for
him, me, you, I
we know this
we can recognize
there is pleasure in the pain you get
from scratching a scratch, popping a pimple,
but when it resurfaces a papule, pustule
then a cyst, nodule
cysts, nodules
big words with big meanings
it's simple
you need a big stomach
to stomach these things
somedays it feels like that's all you'll be left with
after he's done with you.
so my darling, my savior, my applesauce:
let it sink in___
the fact that I want to slam you into the nearest door,
and then eat your soul
so tell me you'll eat mine first,
how we eat more when we're not hungry
just to prove that we once were
hungry.
Copyright © Hiba Junaid | Year Posted 2025
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