An Ode to Writers

You slit your wrists in front of me.

I watch all the heartache pour out. Your longing, thick and coagulated, smearing the page with a copper-scented honesty that stings the back of my throat.

You open your jugular with a pen.

Pain the color of clots and ink, dense and seeping down my screen. Your sadness an acidic burn that sears my eyes.

You gut yourself alive.

Opening up the softest parts of yourself and allowing them to shimmer out of the darkness and into the light of day. Your wants, your needs, left exposed and unprotected.

Then, oh then, you lie back and spread your legs for me.

Sharing with me every secret desire. Every drop of fluid and all the intimacy that led to it. I watch you swipe a finger through the mess and hold it up to the light.

“Here,” you whisper, “Have a taste.”