Bleeding to Feel

Numbness is a lover whose kiss is the cold blade that slices slow,
A wound unseen, its ache the only proof the heart will ever know,
Old scars sleep beneath the skin, tracing maps of love that failed to last,
Pain is a language only the desperate learn, rehearsing futures ruined by the past.
Longing for sensation, the body chases pain for memory’s sake,
Craving a spark, but all the fires left are ashes, nothing left to break.
Sheets crusted with memory–blood and come and sweat–a quiet parade,
A catalogue of attempts to feel, to reach for heat before it fades.
Every night, a performance of injury, a hope that red can conjure white,
But blood is never answer enough, and numbness always wins the fight.

Lovers come like rumors–cold hands, colder eyes, no warmth in any kiss,
Each one leaves a mark, a story, but never the ache of realness, only this–
This hunger that claws at flesh, a need to open, split, expose,
But healing is a myth, and the cut just grows.
Alone with a blade and a mirror, the body tries to remember how to feel,
But love is rot, and numbness is steel.
The only constant is the ache, the only prayer is pain,
Each night a new confession, bleeding just to prove the stain.