Every love up I’ve given up
until now has been
a hard fall—leaving
a scar at the landing,
like a tether to the tight rope hung
in my gut,
swelling with what it has learned
—and what it feels like near you.

You could be my Achilles, so precise
in the way you’ve buried
any hesitancy, an ache in my belly
that finally does not eat away
at me.

I’ve always kept pressing into
the bruise, because if I do
I would never have to learn
the tender ache of healing,
but the way you say my name,

spoken like a prayer at bedtime,
has me slipping up
on the divine roots
of curiosity
between our bodies,

wanted for the first time
in ages, knots of a future weaved
into my thoughts—security
burns so dangerously when
the only heat my body has ever known
fhas never held

the familiar warmth of its own.