Sweet Rot

(Drown me slow)

Narrow corridor of cobalt dusk
Breath like a moth on a jar of musk
You hum a promise under your tongue
I taste the tide and come undone

You draw a circle on my collarbone
Salt in your palms, crown me unknown
We keep our vows inside a borrowed hush
Bite into fruits that taste like rust
Two shadows trade their daylight names
Cross their wrists, rewrite the veins

Call it gentle while the shoreline’s bending
Say it’s pure as the street keeps lurching
If care is clean, why’s the air taste iron
Kiss the siren, teach me to drown slow

Candles hiss like wet serpents
Teeth of rain stitching the distance
We count the seams and call it peace

You bless my pulse with a silver thorn
Stay you murmur, and the night is sworn
I wear your season like a patient bruise
Sweet rot blooming where we choose
In a cedar chest, suits of storm
Pick your weather, change your form

Call it honest while the streets keep heaving
Name it holy though the saints are leaving
If this is safe, why do lungs taste iron?
Bite the rain, crown me with the swarm

(Drown me slow)

I am the padlock and the stolen key
Saints of asphalt kneel to me
We sip from bruises like midnight bread
Swear it’s mercy while we’re fed

Call it shelter as the halls keep shifting
Call it ours while the floor keeps drifting
If this is sane, why do clocks misfire
Hush the mirror, rock the feral child
(Maybe I'm the mouth that named you first)

(Drown me slow)

The salt cathedral folds its pews to bone
The ebb retreats, leaves one shoe alone
If I'm the storm that wears your face
Let me go quiet, erase

(Sink with me)

I'm the tide
Drag me under
Make me your home
Take what you own