Reach out your arms in ribbons towards me,
cry a soundless name.

What is the origin of your pain?
It does not matter. They are all the same,

these burnings that we soothe
with the cool blade of the knife.

I only have to turn my head to see
your scars etched in my memory,

but they have no power to move,
not now, not alone. What hurts is this:

The need to happen again.
Time and time after, coming back

to the brink of the black,
to the need for the desperate kiss

of life.