Hector
He had me suck his blood on the first date. It wasn’t a moral dilemma at all. His mother had fallen face-first into her oatmeal the previous morning of a heart attack and he hadn’t wanted to cancel. He was to be a pallbearer, he already knew this, with his uncles and brother. A mama’s boy who had spent the previous night in a waiting room. DO NOT RESUSCITATE. Blood bank arrows in the corner, white lights harsh as sandpaper rubbing along bare stomachs. I didn’t care because he didn’t care. His limbs didn’t shake, and he was not weeping clovers or coins or things for me to count. So what I did in the back of that car was I licked along his skin to find the best place to bite and eased my teeth into him. He tasted tangy, like tears, and leaned his body into me for that comfort only felt fully with pain.
when given the chance to do anything with no consequences
You’ll fuck the bell in the steeple. You’ll cut me up
and lick the folds. I’m ribbon slices of dress and
skin. I’m third degree burns. Touch me to the
roof of your mouth and you’ll like-like me. You’ve
had a crush on me every iteration. Death breeds
life in the locust season. You’ll suck on my fresh
bones. I’ll have given them to you. You’ll say my
blood feels silken as water when it fills up your
mouth. You’ll fuck the bell in the steeple. It’ll
ring when it cums. You’ll consume my ruins
in the empty ballroom, you’ll open my valentines
from the sixth grade. My email hasn’t changed.
Life breeds death like soldiers marching
around my sternum. I’m waifish on the run.
Touch me to the empty in your stomach. You’ll
love me. You’ll love me. You’ll
love me.
Ivy Jones is a trans masculine author and poet from Atlanta whose work appears in locations such as Moss Puppy Magazine, Thimble Literary Magazine, and isacoustic*. Ivy can be found at @ivyintheroad on Twitter, ivy.twines on Instagram, or ivyjones1769@gmail.com.