I watch all the blood ooze into deranged shapes, like tea leaves that read better. It is my blood and salty sadness that mix and sour together; I forget to even mop it up. Maybe let it go rancid in the bucket.

I do not know how to stop compulsion, and stop love from splashing onto the beautiful, cracked tile he just put to my feet. I let it fill in the seams; one day he will see the mess.

And I vomit anger and things I cannot say to him. That and those cannot be soaked up by the sponge of his heart and lovely innocence; but he knows of my kitchen. The filter that drains and lets loose to the earth with what he wants to paint himself. Because his brushes are golden, and they sparkle when I look at them. I want to cry all the coal and concrete that has pounded my ribs and spine with dents.

He brushes eye whiskers over the tension in my hands, cranking the spam key of my past lefty-loosey. I breathe from him soft, naive warmth of youth that specially shines in his profile.

I am clean.