What a flame brands my heart
Your voice alone summons it like some pavlovian gong
Speak to me of anything, Beloved,
I will answer you in time
Only now my throat is cut

Whose flesh was split like cord wood by the whip?
Mine, mine, I have known the taste of the lash
In a tyrant’s cruel grip
Does this disturb you?
I was three, the age of your own child today

And gritting my teeth, I gasped out those words
Those words that drove it on,
“It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt”
Until from back to knee, I was striped as Christmas candies

I have been called many things,
O Beautiful One,
But never ‘Loved’
And how shall I respond to this?
There is never a monopoly on hate
Why am I shocked that the reverse is also true?

I have been struck speechless before
I tell you, I have been abject and cringing
Before the almighty
It never paid, it never paid
I found my voice at last inside you
I dredged it from your mouth with kisses

Flesh of my flesh
And bone of my bone
How soothing it is to be whole for once