‘oh lonely bones, have you forgotten?’
POEM BY EZ KNILL.
i don’t think i’ll love anyone the way i love you
because in that dull continuous pulse
beating between breaths
rifling through long-forgotten contusions
glancing over somewhat severed arteries
ripping through my chest in a way that feels
not out of place, but still an intrusion
a dull blade skimming over tissue and muscle
veins locked in ligature around your fingers pressing in
tearing my heart from its cavity
filling me up instead with red-hot desire.
it is all-consuming in the way that fire
eats away at what it knows
burning without remorse, without judgement
it burns, because that is all it knows how to do.
i love you, because that is all i know how to do.
in my heart, wretched and ransacked, is a little hole;
it was carved into me slowly
spoonfulls of pulsing muscle stripped
in chunks of blood-soaked blissful agony
for you to create a home inside of me
a concave dwelling just for you
wrapped like a mole in a mountainous molehill
deep-pressed to my chest so that i
may keep you warm
i washed the sheets, last night
and in the breeze of early-morning biting at my skin
i hung out the linen to dry for you
i stay put, in the hole you made of my heart, and wait for you
you return from the cold outside
“hello darling — are you in there? are you warm?”
you say, as you climb past my fence of bone
lined up as brittle as toothpicks for you to force your way in
(though is it force if i took an axe to my rib cage so you could find passage?)
wander up the garden path, soaked in hot red blood
push open the front door, pay the toll with your lips
greet me with a hand in my hair, pale palm warm against my scalp
scarlet sky peeking through the wilting curtains
sinew and ichor dripping and draping from the ceiling
like forgotten streamers after your 16th birthday party
when all the pretty people wished you a happy birthday, baby
their poison lips pressed to your cheek
air filled with clashing perfumes drowning out
the true nature of the room
if the lights turned on, would you still be happy?
is this thing of ours (your home in my heart)
something to care for?
or should i begin to board up the doorway
force the windows closed
turn off the plumbing and the power
an eviction notice tacked to the door
sticky tape ripping layers off the paper and the paint as you
wrench it free from its billboard
it is not yours.
but the home isn’t really there.
i do not have a door inside of me
nor a bedroom, or a kitchen
the warmth from the hearth is figment
but the hole in my heart is very much real
and you live there at no cost
the blood stains are normal now
seeping from my chest, i barely notice as it
spreads to my shirt, coating pearlescent buttons
in a thick, shiny red
leaving a splattered trail behind me
reach down now, and undo my buttons
open my shirt and bare my chest
no pulse left to find
there is no skin that can cover up what you have done.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Title comes from the song Lonely Bones by Dodie.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2023.