Modern Love

A secret. If you eat the strawberry
from the inside out
exposing the pale white insides so that
the skin slips against the contours of your lips,
it will taste bitter like love and
the way I lie in pieces under your carpets.

The only place I felt the tingle of
cherry pits tucked deep inside July darkness like
we meant more than the taste of flesh cutting through
skin, the carpet, the moments right after darkness
when I looked at your face and saw nothing
I couldn't erase.

I watched you consume, fear oozing
from your liver as if you were filtering out
the parts of me that stung, the pristine gleam
of your teeth against my skin. You were around me
and inside me and filtering backwards through all
my memories and your eyes were never open.

I love you, I screamed. You kissed me
like I was summer fruit like your lips were melting
like you couldn't help but break and burn and leave
and who spits out strawberry seeds but you,
leaving them drowning in my hair?