I am eager for you, anxious as an untrained puppy just taken from the teat. Waiting for the sounds of joy, a text message, your footsteps, my voice wearing out from hours of connection, the pitch of me while you are hot against my skin. I feel young. Inhale with me like it’s the first time you touched your own in another. Bloodied with all the ways I am ruined before my death, wet and gaping holes for you to fill and you are good at it. Ballots, bullets, buried in the person because confluence is conflict, in the end. Touch me, I am hungry. Touch me and let me bite you, sharp needles for skin that has known sick already, let me inside and let me eat through your marrow cell by cell. I did not promise to be kind or healthy, only that I would live.