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stardustonsableYou asked once, before you gave a last shallow breath, if I’d ever leave you, if I’d ever let us be apart. I laughed then, and promised you that I’d never be apart from you. You said you’d never leave. I’m keeping your promise for you.
I remove your skin, carefully, my knife angled to avoid snags. It has always been soft, smooth. I try to keep it intact. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I want to keep it, another piece of this memory of you. I leave your head intact, I can’t bring myself to touch your face, to see eyes that do not brighten when they see me.
Your veins aren’t the blue-green they appeared to be under your skin. They split easily, under my knife, and stain the metal red. I bring your wrist to my mouth, take it in, licking gently, hollow coppery flavor rushing across my tongue. I deconstruct the blood, imagine the platelets, the antibodies. You deserve such a careful worship.
Plasma – slick and red, sickly sweet
Red cells – coppery, formerly rich in air, almost black
White – dead, no longer fighting infection, useless then, useless now
Your muscles are weak, thin. A parody of what they once were, before you began to fade away from me, before everything about you was less less none. I carve carefully, making sure not to leave anything behind. I will use them later. Your favorite dishes will be prepared, necessary substitutes made, and I’ll stuff myself, gluttony be damned. I catalogue muscles, using what I learned from you when you spoke in body parts, breathed in books and diagrams of bodies, and your class notes shared our bed.
Deltoids, pectorals, rectus abdominus, sartorius (the one you always forgot)
I have nothing to make this a clean process. You would have tsk’d at me and told me that I could have been neater. I miss you. I lay my head to your chest, an open cavity now, heart still, and wet, your lungs squelch at the movement. One of your ribs protrudes, just barely, reminding me that my worship, my goodbye, isn’t over.
Your bones are brittle, weak, a reminder of your disease, some nameless thing no one could identify. The breaking had begun when you left me, restricting you to the bed. From there you gave me bossy orders, tinged with your sarcasm, your voice faint and tired. They are pearly, tinted pink from endless exposures to washes of red, caused by crumbling veins, paper thin and leaking. I’ve cleaned as best as I can.
Your head sits beside me, eyes closed, your face intact, relaxed. I work carefully, placing you in neat piles. I do not want to disrespect your body.
When I am finally finished, I take your tibia, long, gently sloped (you were tall, your legs extending, one step for two of mine) and brace it against the floor, my breathing loud in my ear. I do not want to break you, but I need to taste you. I force the bone against the floor, and it gives, bending a bit before cracking, almost the sound of splintering wood. I am falling for a moment, you aren’t there to support me anymore. I catch myself.
I push away jagged bone left from the uneven break, and work the marrow from its casing. It is red-brown and crumbling, grainy and tasteless on my tongue. I work the tiny bits into the roof of my mouth, wishing they would dissolve, wishing I could absorb you.
I place the broken bone on my blood-stained carpet, and pick up your heart, the connecting veins already cut, your dead blood seeping slowly. It is heavy and damp. I bring it to my lips, kissing it gently. Almost satisfied, I bite now, my incisors sinking into the organ easily. You flood my mouth, I swallow, gasping my goodbye
