She’s talking fast and has the pills
in her hand
between two thin fingers
and they migrate like birds
to nest on her tongue.

You want to ask her to say
whatever she said again
but you’re so tired and the words
are so thick,
and she’s already stopped talking to swallow.

Her fingers in your mouth,
the same ones that held the pills
that are meant to suspend her thirst
after she drinks.

You can taste their bitter afterlife on her skin.
Her warm breath on your neck.
Teeth lingering too long,
too close.
But then it’s just her lips on your skin
and you stop holding your breath.

“Does it hurt when I bite into you?” she asks
and she smiles with those skin-cutting teeth.
Bite marks down your inner thighs,
in between your shoulder blades.
Where God can’t see.

It’s what you do for her
because you loved her once.
Because you love her still.
“Because your blood tastes like conium maculatum,”
and she laughs
because you don’t know what she means.

It’s dreamlike in this haze with her.
You know someday the pills won’t work.
You know someday you won’t wake up from this.
But for now, you put your shirt back on
and kiss your blood from her lips.
“It doesn’t hurt,” you say.
You lie.