Poets should never make ghost children.

 I whisper cheap metaphors  
into your needy ears until, like  
funeral flowers, they rest upon  
the atlas of your mind.  You  
with your napkin love letters  
and cloudy storm eyes
are the only one to ever  
make my scaled spine quiver.  
But, my veins ache  
from consuming to much ink.  
I am gagging on black blood  
as it spills from your fingertips  
to rest upon my lips.  
You asked me once if I could read  
the words carved into my limbs  
like prophecies of you and I—  
we were written in the universe  
of freckles dotting my thighs.

I tried to plot constellations  
along this neurotic cadaver skin  
only managing to contradict you.