Coming Home to You
Your fingers squeeze my organs
Like a baby’s loving grasp,
Reactive, Instinctive,
Holding with gentle trust.
I gasp for your smell,
Telling you to squeeze
Harder
Ease this lingering sense
Of forlorn presence torn
From my collapsing
Body yelling for sublime
Time-twisting shining
Knives to end me before
Forever and after never.
Gentle;
You make hard gentle,
You make tearing gentle,
You make terror gentle.
Your fingers;
I want them to penetrate
Hematomas in my heart
Rub them to alleviate
The balls of gulps,
Flesh bubbles of nausea from
Holding in so many screams.
Your hair could seam the gaping
Holes where they raped me.
Your kiss soothes like a cool sunrise
After a summer night of binge drinking.
Eyelashes wink teasing kisses;
I want more of the elixir you pour.
Squeeze me until I wheeze and pop,
Shed these scales and cough up
Flaming flem of internal rot.
I’m not afraid, not anymore;
You’ve peeled me to the core.
I bleed but lose no blood.
I’m freed by my ability to love you.
Poem and Art by Angela Castillo (2019)
