I wore a watch that did not belong to me
and held two fingers to my voice box,
you almost did the same.

Today my words are just left hand turns,
I write like this is the last time
our pulses will be half hoped-for dreams.
This internal bleeding is like raised eyebrows
that I want to stamp down with a blistered foot.

Your were chewing an umbilical chord
as if you had no life left, you promised to die today
on a death bed that used to be mine;
you were afraid of tubes and sirens.

I wanted to say things like --
'life is not always a black skin-suit
with its zipper caught in your hurried truth,

I wanted to put on surgical gloves, say --
'do not be scared of needles'
reach beyond pore-level and tug all this out.
But I could not.

I feel like this too, in the folds of my skin
I feel like this too, in the blemishes on my chin
it is more than this, we know
each other well.