After Our Encounter

I am rubbed raw, bleeding from small cuts.

A limp onion, grey and shredded, stinging sour.

I harbor dark thoughts. Throbbing, battered,

my bruised organs gasp for breath. Self-pitying,

despised as the fitful black fly, consumed, chewed up,

discarded detritus, a banana peel, spotted, decaying, sorry for itself,

eluded as the road killed creature, a lump of fur on blood-smeared

asphalt— this is my heart.

Soaked in sorrow, an abused hound, shivering with swollen eyes.

It was filled with passion, but without receptacle

lacking a vessel in which to pour its ardor.

It needs to burst in your presence, but can only deflate

or harden itself, calloused. It gulps and flails – a naked fledgling,

all skin and beak. I wear red, but your eyes avoid mine.

I cradle my wound as an infant, wet and whimpering.

It’s all that remains.