Lesson With Scissors
To Samson, From Delilah
When I first saw you, you glowed pink and gold
A holy being with knees in the dirt.
You fed me wet slices of blood orange
in my city,
Illegal.
I said: I have loved you all my life.
What I meant: I never want to exist where you cannot see me.
As Adam clawed at Eve's rib cage
Claiming her bones originated from his own
You kissed my ribs softly,
The indentations of your teeth scarring my skin
With cosmic tenderness.
Like Moses and the Burning Bush,
My vision sharpened around the gravitational pull you have on me-
a crippling yearning for you to orbit around me in return.
You— you are punching holes in every wall,
Tearing down columns with the strength of ten Gods,
Bare hands wrapped around the throat of a lion
Shin deep in a lake of dead men.
And me — exhausted by this Biblical tyranny
This Holy War
So tired of you being anything other than
my own.
Once, we followed the Jordan River
to its dead end at the Dead Sea.
I would walk that for you,
barefoot in the snow, without hesitation.
Are you listening? Do you understand what I'm saying?
In the pink stillness of morning
I curl against your naked spine.
In sleep – all your bravado gone.
Picture this: we never have to wake up
from this deliciously ordinary normality.
Let me lead you out of bed,
Stand on tile floor over the porcelain claw-foot tub.
Let me hold the scissors steady,
Shiver against metal pressed to your warm skin.
Picture this: blond hair soft as moon sand
could pool at your feet.
You could be pulled peacefully into my orbit,
so utterly human, nothing left to prove.
Gently, I'll flatten my palm over your mouth.
Be very quiet.
Hold very still.
I am about to do something I can never take back.
By Eliana Lambros
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