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Hi there.

I did really like this. I don't think I've ever seen poem (if you could call it a poem) that uses a list and numbering like this. So I do have to applaud you for taking that risk.

However it can also be its downfall. As I said before it's hard to call it a poem.

But the language is very good. Very rich and satisfying.

So good job.

CUTTING UP RED BELL PEPPERS.

I remember that.

When you're hitting flow just right, there's something else you need to keep in mind: whether what you're saying actually sings. I'll take this part by part:

1.

The man lying next to you wants to be inside you. His hands scamper along your body, speaking to you like sentient pets. He’s broad-chested, towheaded, and his ripped red t-shirt thrown across the bed reminds you of your heart—so you let him in. He stretches into you and everything inside coils, like he’s digging in a screw to fix the parts of you that don’t work. You think he wants to save you. You think you love him.

2.

Now he’s always inside you, and when he isn’t you remember him inside you, how you only make love with the blinds closed. He never speaks at night so the darkness speaks for him, wanting to peel the skin from your body and find whatever still beats inside you, the cogs of your innards still winding, still counting down the hours. At dawn, blades of light shove through the slatted blinds, cutting up the bodies, yours and his, still so knotted together that his hands are your hands and your heart is his heart.

3.

Sometimes you think of her, of the ring jammed in the pocket of your jeans. He knows about her, of course. He asked about the band of pale skin around your finger, but only after he pulled you apart at the seams and stitched you back together into a creature that would love him. He holds you closer because he knows she’s there, as though in this moment you belong to him even more because you don’t.

4.

You turn to her on the days you miss him. She’s in the kitchen, standing at the sink before the window, chopping red bell peppers. The light sweeps over her, unraveling the dark threads of her hair. You come from behind, fingers aligning along the curve of her waist like stars, like the constellation you could always point out to her, before you realized the stars are just stitches of light, holding together the sky. Your fingers move to the pulse at her wrist, to the hand that holds the kitchen knife, her grip loosening as she bends into you. You wish she’d press that knife to your throat, carve a scar into your jaw to remind you that she loves you. But she will only cut the bell peppers, their flesh bright and doomed.

5.

Standing in the shower, you wash his fingerprints from your skin. The showerhead spits at you, the water rubs its hands along your flanks. You scrub until the water spins pink at the drain—but you can’t clean the bruises flung across your chest and your neck, where his mouth lingered, where he broke the capillaries and sometimes broke the skin. Your blood is in his mouth, corroding his teeth as they jut into a jagged grin. It splits his face in half.

6.

On hot nights she clings to you as though shipwrecked, as though in sleep she understands that everything around her is collapsing. You hold your breath beneath her touch. The muscle in your jaw stops working. You ask the darkness for an answer, but the room frays at the edges, the plane of your vision blurs. Through the window the crickets sing, striking their wings together, bodies breaking for love.

7.

You’re slung across the wasteland of the bed, wet shirt clinging to your skin, the crust of blood on your knuckles. The light fled from his eyes when you said you were afraid to leave her—he hurled the vodka bottle at the wall, broken glass streaking like stars and puncturing the space between you. He struggled with you, four arms binding together, untwisting as he wrenched himself away.

8.

Alone, you want to touch yourself but are afraid, the silence lying all around you,

a gutted thing.

Not much to say about this, but I rather loved it.

One bit that sounded interesting was the difference between the girl and the guy... the girl seemed to be described more like a photograph or memory. While the guy was always present and there, the girl was always described passively, even if she was doing something aggressive (like, with the knife). But I liked and appreciated that because it gave her a softer, more feminine quality.

Nice poem!