Blink, Bleed

I knew a girl once,
who saw the world
through broken glass.
This is how her story went:

Blink,
             Bleed
Blink,
             Bleed

Bleed, because it’s easier
             to blame yourself
             than the one who deserves it.
Blink, because it’s easier
             to shut your eyes now
             than in the moment you should have.

Before we met, I’d heard that story
told in silence,
in tears pearled and teeth cutting
the mouths of eloquent wounds.
But even in my best nightmares,
I’d never seen anyone hurt
             so beautifully.

It was a lifetime ago,
a restless night in the Bowery,
no cover at CBGB’s.
I wasn’t punk—
or even New York, but
neither was she.

The Dead Boys were going
Down in Flames,
and the room was lit up like Blitzkrieg.
Even in sky-high stilettos,
I was too low
to see,
so I drank,

swallowed the smoke, the sweat, the violence,
the shrieking strings and strangled hosannas
of masochistic three-chord idols.

But by last call, it was all white noise
except for that stone-sharpened gaze—
the razored edge of Anarchy
        dulled to a backdrop
for the girl holding my heart at knifepoint.

She was:
   Pain, sex, misanthropy,
a disaster I needed to happen.
I was:
    Numb, haunted, bitter,
a two-star resort for toxic spectres
using cheap whiskey to clean house.
But she didn’t care,
didn’t judge,

she bought me another, then
pulled me onto the floor.
We danced till dawn
to a ballad of glass and blood,
and didn’t blink once.