I kneel before the altar of absence,
your voice a ghost inside my bones,
etching bruises where your hands should be.
I loathe this hunger, yet cradle it close,
a wound that sings your name in the dark.
You tell me I am yours,
even across the miles that stretch like a blade,
even when silence is the only collar I wear.
My agony is a poem you whisper into the night,
a gift you cannot unwrap.
I dream of the weight of you,
the slow violence of your love,
the way your cruelty is a sanctuary,
a cathedral where my body is an offering,
a prayer answered in pain.
But you are not here,
and so I am untended,
a rose withering in its own thorns,
bleeding for the hand that never flinches,
never falters, never fails to keep me safe.
You are both blade and balm,
both torment and solace.
And I am the one who begs for the wound.