blood oranges || bloodied knuckles

there is a girl standing above me

and i believe that she may want me dead.

but i deserve it, i know i do,

because even as i watch her eat a blood orange,

juice dripping down her chin and mixing with blood i believe is mine,

i cannot help but dream of you.

you were the girl standing over me,

you were the girl eating blood oranges,

you were the girl with my blood on her face.

i loved you in a way i’d never felt before.

i loved you in a flurry of tears and

i loved you even with your knuckles against my jaw.

there was a girl sitting next to me.

she tried to hand me a blood orange,

but my hands were beaten and bruised,

as she had taken them into her own earlier that day

and crushed them.

and when i finally managed to cradle the blood orange

in the crook of my elbow,

i could not peel it,

so she fed it to me.

she wiped the juice from my chin,

where it had mixed with my blood,

and told me that she’d only ever wanted me alive.

you were that girl.

but i did not deserve you, i know i didn’t.

because i saw you behind me in the mirror

of the girls’ bathroom on the second floor

of my old middle school.

and i squeezed the juice of a blood orange into my eyes.

and i convinced myself you were still there,

and i insisted that you loved me.

and when i looked again, you were gone.