webbing

the time spent away from you is laden in envy for the time spent beside you. i am covetous of what is neither mine nor my neighbor’s. covetous of what is free. what i cannot cage, control, make adore me. oh, i am spoiled still. the brattiness rises in my chest like agita. my knuckles trembling with the need to enstrangle. embrace. entangle. possession is for demons but i want you in my palm. i am a thief who walks away from every heist empty handed. can i become arachnid, lure you into my web, keep you as my own, & devour you from spine to tibia? shred your flesh like i shred your flannel, peeling you away, separating the sinews & the fibers & the arteries. i am starving. i am thirsty. but there are those gladly allowing me to feast & i find their organs sour & rotten. it’s you i want caught in my fangs, bleeding out, immobilized, mine. it’s a fantasy, you know. i haven’t grown pincers, can’t spin a web. i actually don’t want to dive in, drown, claw at you, keep you. there’s just these fleeting, these ephemeral gusts of lust that tell me to gorge myself on your flavor. please don’t misinterpret, this is not a love poem. this isn’t meant to illicit any emotion from you. this is an illustration of the overwhelming rush of ardor i feel at the thought of your breath on my neck. nothing more. it’s the rush of summertime through open car windows, speeding down the pike all the way to the shore. the exhale of salty air from the bay water rising up, up, up like the way my own breath catches in my throat at your fingertips on me. don’t get it twisted. don’t misunderstand. the swell isn’t about the falling, it’s about the quaking. about the comfort in the bruises & open wounds. not about dedication, it’s about determination & the quench of sleep. climb into my open palm, i promise i won’t keep you.