Having chewed through so many bones,
pointed canines are ground to pups
My heart is too coarse to feed on
It’s not meat for your weakness
Clogged, artless, and diseased
It’s not an organ you can tenderize,
as if its beats are tinny and submissive
It’s not a source of iron for your pulse
The cherry tissue may have hardened,
scarred by lips and lies and lacerations
If you seek the passionate gristle,
I cannot nurse you back to Heathcliff
Not with this cold-blooded anemia
and distaste for my own broken body
Sharpen your teeth on my shoulders
They’ve seen their fair share of chips
Go on, gnaw on rawer ghosts than mine
But touch not the petrified monster:
that stone that bleeds beneath my ribs
Royal Rose 