It has started, and now we see how it will end,
like a dish ready to break, a cup, the seam
of a crack running down its spine.

All it needs is too much heat, is to sink
in steaming water till it splits to pieces,
till all we have to gather is that shining

glass that holds no water, that bleeds
into our hands. Do not touch that jagged
edge, her smile, her teeth ready to sink

into skin. The wound already started days ago,
one that can’t be sewn shut,
an eye that won’t sleep, just blinks.

Now it is just the question of when and how.
Two bodies will be forced together and apart,
the friction between them either love

or violence. The connection, intimate
when she touches your face, grabs
your hair till it comes out in her hands.

But this is not love. She is not the only one
who has touched you this roughly,
pulled you close, pushed you away

at the same time, scratched into your flesh,
red lines into your eye, like the time
a blood vessel popped in the principal’s eye

from stress. I can still remember
the school gym, a bouncing basketball
hitting the ground and rising up in the air,

stopping there for a moment, a rhythm
interrupted when she came screaming
towards you, bodies falling to the hard floor.