I wanted to ask for your ashes –
just some,
you know, not all –
but I was afraid
I'd eat them.
I saw myself consuming that dust
as you consumed the cyanide –
unconscious, freely
taking it into yourself as a part,
tearing the world apart
and putting me
too far away.
So I wanted to eat you
as I'd taken you in me not often enough
in life and in trying to create it;
to taste every part I'd loved –
even the sweat, even the stink
and the semen and slick of
your saliva in my mouth, on my parts.
But now you're so dry,
and so gone,
and I see myself opening your lid,
inhaling your dust – no choking allowed –
into pores, into nose, into mouth into eyes;
licking lips and truly tasting
only how far
behind you have left me.
