ICU

Night surgery: days, weeks, years in the future,

you will know everything. When you drill a hole

in my skull and see my naked pink matter,

you’ll see it all.

How I always wanted to die for love—

how, if my blood were to be on anyone’s hands,

I would want it to be yours.

How I thought for a while that it would always hurt. How I thought for a while

that the hunger would emaciate me, that I’d bleed

myself dry tearing at myself with my own teeth. How I need

to be excised, extirpated, reconstructed from the

inside out, and how your strong hands and years

of burns and broken bones make me want you to be the one cutting me open,

and how I trust you.

How I’m afraid to wake up afterward, because when I do,

when I see you,

I’ll know you’ve seen me too.