bone/blood

The taste of blood had stained my restless mouth, had washed over my tongue, 

had made me new again.

Made me weak again.  

Fresh blood, fresh kill, fresh feelings all boiling in and out of my restless mouth. 

Teeth fall, you know. They fall, and sometimes all at once. They fall and sometimes you sleep through it. 

And sometimes it never happened at all. 

The taste of bone stalled my anxiety. My teeth are in my mouth. 

Stress dreams after beautiful sex taste like chicken tacos and Jamaica. 

One without the other? It could work? One could fall asleep calm and collected? 

But the taste of my stress dreams refuses to disappear from my restless mouth.

 Ferdinand the little bull sniffs my lilies, calls me pretty, takes my pity in his hands. Smells it. Licks it. Eats it whole. Me and all my worries, pain, love, and glory, going down into the pit of this man that does not know me at all. He wants to scarf me down like grandma’s banana puddin’ at Christmas. Far too sweet for seconds. But he goes for thirds. 

I’ll give you cavities, you know? 

But my sweet banana feelings go down his throat like gumbo. Nothing sweet about gumbo. 

Spicy sausage and rue, crab legs and shrimp, rice, oysters salty on the roof of my mouth. 

There ain’t nothing sweet about gumbo. There ain’t nothing sweet about a Pink's spicy sausage. 

Why can’t you treat me sweet? 

Like my stress dreams? Sweet? Like jelly rolls?

Sweet like how you wish you could be to me. 

But, instead, I wake with the taste of blood in my mouth, the urge to check for my teeth; the smell of stress in my room lingers. Even after you left for the third time, you still couldn’t take all of yourself with you. You had to leave the shell of those legs you snapped in my bowl. 

I’ll clean it; even after the after taste hits, I’ll clean it. 

The taste of no tastes at all split my throat into three. Woke me with the quickness. Shook my mind and begged for clarity. Begged to know why, after beautiful sex with that banana sweet, that caramel apple, nothing sour or salty about it.

 Why do I taste bone, blood, and stress?                 Mamas?

 You still got your teeth?