Thick and muddled with sleep, I drink you up,
you do Viennese waltzes in my dreams,
and your calloused hands clasp onto mine.

Together, we dance for our lives, ritualistic and endlessly dependent,
I gasp and swallow for air underneath your gaze,
and I feel the beginnings of bruises on my waist where your hand gripped.

The line between love and infatuation is so blurred through my scratched-up glasses,
that I’ve already forgotten who I am, lost in the walls of haze and fog,
and in patterns of three, you step on my toes on each downbeat, whether you meant to or not.

I’d sing you a lullaby and hum our ballroom song while your head rests in my lap,
your eyelids fluttering and your breath coming out more gently than your words,
while I try to ignore the aching wounds on the surface of my skin.

Each sip of you I take in is like swallowing cherry pits,
riddled with tiny doses of cyanide that seem harmless at first,
but build up to choke me from the inside out.