Steel Lover

By Kate Huneke

The first cut-
it wasn’t the deepest.
No, not at all.
It was like the others,
a subtle rend of
anxious skin, the gentle pulse
of crimson, just enough
to hush the demons
shrieking inside my brain.
But this time they wouldn’t
shut up. Just kept on howling, like my
unforgotten ghosts when they
were displeased and grieving.

Worst thing was, the older
I got, the more I began
to see how much I resembled
the shadowy creatures. They fell
in and out of the churning black
water, then lifted up into the white
clouds. Not high enough to feel satisfied.
We’re closer than I registered.
That day I actually
thought about screaming.
So I gave myself to the blade,
asked it to bit a little
harder, chew a little deeper.
The hot, scarlet rush
felt so delicious,
I couldn’t stop there.

The knife might have reached bone, but my brightest
star, floating on the ebony, sad velvet
layer of hate, barged into
the bathroom, found me leaning
against a loved one’s new marble
tub, turning it’s unstained
white pink.
You should have
seen his
light flicker, then go
out, like a
light bulb.