Baby, Your Lips are Cold

They couldn't pay me to love you more.

In my bedside drawer, beneath condoms, and candy bar wrappers, I keep a box for you, beneath empty pill bottles with barely legible labels.

A locked box.

Metal and hard and cold to touch, I brush my fingers across it to ground myself during the hot, desperate nights, to remind myself that they can't pay me to love you.

I prostitute myself for them, I kill for them, I take my payment and and take your hand and all is right in the coldness of the space. There is a galaxy in my chest, a black hole overwhelmed with starlight.

I keep a locked box in my bedside drawer to remind me that you are my choice, and if I hate you, it is not because they paid me too.

I keep the key around my neck, like a dog tag, like a collar.

I kiss you like a promise, to remind myself that there is locked box in my bedside drawer, with your name on it, the one you have forgotten.

Inside, I keep a bullet, because they can't pay me to love you, but I would kill you for the right price.