This is not a poem. This is not a letter.
This is not a plea.
This is a negotiation. This is a good night kiss.

This is what I have in mind.

Open slowly for me, like stitches coming undone,
One at a time, soft and sweetly cut under the swift nick of the blade.
Make room. My hand to rest against your frenzied but now steadying heart.

One, two, three, four, five fingers. Palm. Stop.

The slimmest incision is all I ask. I go no further.
Come undone and let me unravel the onion of blood-beast-beauty within you.
I give you my word, I will keep you intact. My word, I said.

Did you hear what I said?

I have loved you this way: as if breath depended  on you loving me back.
Let me in and I will let you out.
For I have known many things but this: how not to be yours.