OPEN WIDE

Elise Tideswell

I dream of the coldest touch of death;
a festering flesh-love
groaning without breath,
crossing into oblivion with an only-just shove.

I craved that bite so viscerally
I practically begged aloud for it.
Will you not dig your rotten sweet teeth into me,
tear my throat out all pretty and neat?

Eat me whole.

Swallow me and keep me in the crevices of your fingernails,
let your blue lips hold my last gasp of air,
force apart my ribs and crawl right in;
I can pass it on,
pay it forward,
deceive the end of life itself;
please, just –
drag me, along, behind.