Particular Words in a Specific Order

The air you’re choking on is a pale gold 
in dim and damp early morning, where dew 
hangs, half-asleep, from spiderwebs vacated 
of their lords and ladies. I can see the light, 

though I cannot taste it, much as I swallow 
gulp after gulp of the weightless poison. Leaves, 
struck into a pallor from the night previous,  
sway in silence, sharing a distant ache for the other. 

In the faintness of the deeper forest, the garnet  
gem that you ripped out of yourself lies, beating  
to a rhythm I’ve never quite grasped. Roots wrap 
around it, nestling it safely. I don’t know who they 

think they’re keeping it for. Its owner sleeps, fae-skin 
glistening in the same living condensation that coats 
the rest of the grove, seven steps away. I don’t check 
on you; my eyes are a part of this gemstone, this 

seed to a real human enigma. My throat is hoarse from 
the poison; I try to remember if I’d already yelled, because 
I wanted to again, and maybe I would repeat myself, maybe 
you’d wake up to tell me to be quiet. I told the dirt that  

you would wake up, argue with me, call me a name and stick 
your tongue out, and the forest kept silent in response. Sapphire 
stones, small as blueberries, run like a trail of treats to your figure.  
How many did you eat, I wonder, before you could take no more? I don’t ask 

you aloud. I don’t ask you anything. Not the questions that 
coat my mind, slime of desire and venom-tasting, that you might 
still be alive to be hurt by them. Not for you to speak, to imply 
that I have some right to hear an answer. I, in my own imitation 

of the dragon of my mind, want you to want me to ask first. I want 
to sate my avarice and hunger with the gems you leave behind. A  
little hoard of jewels in my belly, and I lie to myself: I’m taking up 
the banner she left behind. I did the right thing. 

I know how to ask, now.

2019