Temporary Vows

I hold two fingers to my head,

trigger my thumb, I say pow.

I slice my throat with a single stroke,

pull an invisible blade

vertically along my vein.

Remember the deaths we did together?

Twiddling oven knobs in the air

then thrusting our chins to inhale?

I loved you so much

during that experimental play

when you slowly leant forward to nick

your femoral artery then quietly

bled out in your seat until curtain call,

blood only we saw.

As well as death, we’d mime marriage.

I’d slide on a spectral ring

and you’d shiver at the thrill

of my thumb and fingertip

sealing the deal for a second till

the thought melted back into your skin.

I am proficient at beginnings,

the Air Year: the anniversary prior to paper

for which ephemeral gifts are traditional.

Only after our rings became solid

silver did they truly disappear.

Now the house is a mime scene.

Mime blood all over the floor,

trodden into carpet fibers,

shirts, bras, dried to an airy crust

under my nails. I slit

my neck at the traffic lights,

pow on the train, I suspend

my non-knife above my head,

“see what you’re making me do.”

Red whirls rise from the cuts.

All these huge thoughts come to

nothing. My shadow is

the chalk outline of a woman

who did not jump.