STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

By Billie Jama

Step one: thoracic surgical intervention;

Open chest cavity.

Brace for impact.

Step two: insert another person ~

Roughly, carelessly ~

Obsession in silk,

Lips fluent in heartache,

Kisses falling like moths

Around a flame

They know will finish them.

Note: they will not fit neatly.

This is normal.

Ignore the protruding edges.

Ignore the venom laced so sweetly

You’ll call it taste.

Step three: wait.

Devotion stitches itself into scars,

The architecture of tissue aftergrowth,

While the bruise of attachment deepens beautifully,

And the halo cracks at midnight

Where catacombs bloom unseen.

There is no step four.

The manual ends abruptly

With lovers at the gallows ~

Still dressed up, still hopeful,

Making it, frankly, worse.

A promise that does not comfort:

You will do it again.

Due to degeneration, amnesia,

And the oubliette of Hope ~

They did not read the manual,

And neither will you.

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