fine, not final

[spemo]

I.
the night blurs on my tongue as i spin,
a dervish in my living room.
i knock over the coffee table and fall,
again,
to the floor where we began,
where i broke my promise--
one that tasted rotten and crumbled
at the first touch of your hand on my tshirt,
your breath in my mouth,
breathless.

i had words for you
to say, to scream.
i'll hold them back now,
keep them for the next act,
a continuatino of this drama
and what i must remember:
i can hurt myself so much worse than anyone's ever done.

II.
nights we spend in sheets
tossing and turning, pulling at skin;
my teeth against his
collar bone
shoulder
hips, lips and ear.
i tug,
not as hard as i'd like, maybe harder than he's used to
but how should i know?

our words are sparse, tucked behind pillows and
kicked to the floor,
sometimes tossed over the bed frame, getting knotted
in the same cold metal spirals i grip as i
arch my back or writhe beneath him.

when we finally sleep it is 
restless, he folds me into him,
a pretzel,
for a moment until we roll apart and
dont touch again unless i run into something in the dark
getting back to him.

our conversation is mostly words repeated,
breathless,
except in those hours before, when my shirt's still on and
we laugh at shared stories from
before
he gave his answer and had me all figured out.

he stops us before we go too far, so i dont think he understands
penetration,
permeance,
that i press my nose to the bed in an abstract imitation and
wonder how i've come to [anticipate] the leftover smell of
cigarettes and weed.

a cat may look at a king.