You Placed The Knife Next To My Chest

You placed the knife next
to my chest, and I gladly pushed
against the clean kiss of its edge,
one side hate, one side love,
plunging deep into the center
of my desire for you.

To need is to want, and to want
is to need, and the recognition
of both surfaces sometimes
in the most unattractive of moments.

If I had a gift to offer you,
it would be a jeweled urn,
golden and pristine, polished until
the glint of the sun upon its surface
would bring tears to your thoughts, and where inside
you would find the dust of the memories
of when you mattered as more
in my life than as an assassin
who comes quietly to warm
my bed at night.