Ode to decay

I relish the flakes on my chapped nose, the cracks rip acid on my lip. The ground, dead, lest thin air lifeless. Brisk. Making me feel alive, reminded of death.

You used to hate my dry skin, scales, salt stained grin. How grains clung under my brow and sprinkled the edge of my beard. Sunscreen tinted, outlined jagged edges. Freckles littered, forever flushed. I did always burn.

You used to say hate because you loved me too much, knew you couldn’t change, not for me, and I nowhere was the only place I could stay.

We are all living on the death inside, how it bubbles and craters into a putrid waste. And we feel rejuvinated by consuming, destroying—sacrifice another for another day.

You loved the spirit that would dare to sacrifice itself. Out there, without you, this body will decay. The one you took for pleasure, for freedom, for reminders that life could begin inside you. Called it evil still, rejected how you saw yourself in me. We saw death, together.