Kiss Me

I want to drink your breath
from a fragile, little tea cup
Tasting the steam lifting from a split lip bleeding in the snow
Our mouths love carefully
as if tenderness could cauterize the damage waiting underneath.
Our teeth press, passionate punctures
Biting into skin like silk pulled too hard
Blood beads down your chin
a rosary of red between our lips
I kiss you softer as it spills
tongue tending to what it’s stealing
cradling your ache as I drink
delicate as a dying bird,
and I hold your face
the way one holds something breaking
while my mouth drains stars into your lungs