I would give you my own pulse to keep
if it meant yours woke from its long sleep.
Let your hand rest on me and feel
what hasn’t moved in you for years
turn over, and wake, and lose its fears.Everyone says this will unmake me.
I believe them.
I have no argument, no plea.
The part of me that should flinch
went quiet the moment you came near,
as if it had read the ending
and chosen, knowing, to stay here.So take what the working costs.
Burn me down to the root,
again and again, whatever is lost.
I will go gladly each time
if the last ash settles
and you stand up whole,
your wakened heart loud as a bell,
tolling through your chest, through your soul.I don’t know why
I’m the one at your door
with the ritual half-begun,
salt poured, a circle drawn on the floor,
knowing the oldest rule of the craft:
what heals, takes.I am not innocent in this.
Another dark has already taken me apart;
I know what it is to be undone.
And yet my whole heart
still leans toward yours,
as if it never learned to fear the fire.I already know:
if you ever let me touch your heart,
I will not walk out as I walked in.
Whatever you carry will undo me,
and a new name I did not choose
is where I’ll begin.Yet I’ve come again to another threshold.
I scatter the salt.
I let the circle break.
Whatever waits in your dark,
let it find me unguarded.God help me.
I am already yours to unmake.