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Reduction

Starting with the extremities, the furthest of the appendages, the fingertips that could crawl inside of me, the only way to be. To become. The tongue, the penis, inside they can be healed. The perimeters, the lines carved out. With my knife. The jutting ankle bone that heralds to my lips as I press them against... the Achilles heel, the weak spot, the place that might snap, like your wrists, or mine. With one fluid gesture, or one too many fast flicks in my direction. Your hips curved like a weapon, or the softest edge of a rose petal, the thorn, the stabbing motion inside my hand that weeps. If your tongue were inside my mouth, would you try to speak? Or would you write your apologies in note form on the inside of my arm, where I never wash away the dirt? What are you? Do you wish you could eat me piece by piece like a chocolate-covered living-thing? I would squirm inside you, wriggle away so I couldn't be caught. I thought it was what I wanted but now I know I just want to scar you. My lover, my trophy, my other. My one. I don't know how many there are. If I cut you up would there be more of you? Or would you rejoin? If I can't see you how can I own you? If I can't consume you I will have to eat your words, cut them from your tongue, or from your hand. Or do they come straight from your heart? Mine come from my cunt and if I can't expel them I will swell to a size I won't be able to handle. They will have to be cut out from the topside of my underbelly and I might bleed to death. Come here, just put your fingers inside and let me look at your face, at the changing expressions, components. You're made up of many. I can separate the many from the few with one laceration. I can gut you like a fish. Then I could climb inside and draw hieroglyphs on your wall. Scar you on the silver side and before I retreat you can hold me close and reduce me. It's all conjecture anyway.
O where have you gone
                          O love?

             i can still recall
             your cock-eyed
                                       rutabaga

lips                                                                 lashing

             myhands to our hourglass

bed posts
                                       where [into me] you plunged

your filth-dripped umbrella
             coated sweet word kisses

of a                                  comatose,
                                        test-tube
                                        colored heart.
                               
Cameran Ashraf
Rachel Kendall