shaven

the clumps of hair once caught in the razor’s edge slip quietly down the drain

as smoothly as my bare legs glide across the sateen sheets at night

both are beautiful, ephemeral, quick to be forgotten



when the itch comes, it comes all at once

as pinpricks of betrayal awaken across my flesh

as though saying You cannot stay this way forever

Your beauty is manufactured and so is this existence



and when the blood blooms red and metallic under my fingernails

there is no softness left beneath my hands

except for the pulsing warmth of the wound