Assorted Poetry

the heart wants what it wants

original date of publication: january 2023

I sit in the trenches, shaking, dirty hands around a knife. It is holy, it glows, and it begs me wordlessly, so loud so silent, to take my shaking hands and plunge it into my chest.

I am dying more every day I live, and the strings that keep me a puppet keep me standing. I can't heal wounds with the bullets still in my chest. I can't drop the knife without a chest to plunge it into.

I drown peacefully. The ocean is larger than my fragile human body can fight. The ocean is larger than my fragile human body can see. The tides will pull me as they will; I will be dragged down and unable to breathe. I have to sink into the panic and the burn of my lungs. I have to accept that I will not find land. I have to accept that I am cursed.

I look at the knife on the table. It wants me to take it to the street, to lean in close to a friend who trusts me and right as they go for the hug I plunge it into their chest. Anyone will do, the knife promises, just as long as they don't wear armour, as long as they aren't immune to my knife.

Blood makes the hilt slippery; no matter what I do there are cuts on my hands, deep into arteries, I bleed out and try to stitch them shut. I lay shuddering on a stone floor. I didn't need to stab anyone. I bleed all the same.

I can't sleep these days. I'll turn anyone over in my head, because if it saved me once maybe it'll save me again.

I see them pass by the window. It feels so easy to lose them. So easy to move on. I wish I had some control. I wish I could just jump through the window.

The knife won't let me give it away. It won't let me take it to someone else. I can't stab a stranger. It's me, or it's someone I love.

It's someone I love.

It wants their heart and their heart pumps blood. Their blood's on my hands even if all we ever did was look at each other and think about it for five minutes. Because my knife is restless, and if you invite it in I don't know if I have the willpower to stop it. If I do, it's only by jumping in the way. It's only by getting stabbed instead.

It's a beautiful knife. It's ornate, silver, a tiny little heart carved into the hilt. The words I love you down the blade. Those words are blood-soaked. Always will be. This isn't a gentle sort of trauma.

It's got to stab someone. Sooner or later.

Maybe they're lucky they missed it. Maybe it's coming back around. To her, to them, to someone new. Please stab someone I don't care about.

I can't sleep. The heart wants what it wants, and what it wants is a knife twisted in my chest.

Someone, someday, give me some relief.