By all the blood its clear she must have loved
him more than he deserved. You see those marks
gouged out behind the door he used to come
and go? There’s five of them, the fingertips
adorned with manicures she used to strip
the flesh from her own arms. You see how deep
the blood has soaked into the wood beneath
the chips of layered paint that marks the years
of every time she tried to start again?
That pool that’s dried and matted by the chair
attests to how she’d wait while drip by drip
her love, both kind and patient, ebbed away.
And now coagulated, putrified
it only waits to be scraped up, removed.