Hold my hand.

I don't know where I'm going. There was a splash, a slash, then a clawing against the linolium. A moan, that guttural groan, a gutter throat, he cut his own throat. His skin like dead ivory.

Then I held him.

I stepped into the tub. He steeped the water like tea with his blood. I folded myself round him like a ship sail round the wind. My legs became his legs. My lips became his lips. I pressed my chest hard against his back so that my heart could echo through his body and remind his heart how to live.

Hold my hand.

“I like the way you move!” He screamed it. He liked my geriatric gig! Where was it? Unity? By the end of the night, I had my back pressed against a 6-foot-tall-speaker while we made out furiously, shirtlessly, to Lady Gaga. He slipped his tongue down my throat so far that I nearly chocked. “Gagging on Gaga!” he yelled. I died!

Now I hold him.

The muscles in his arms feel like dumplings. I unclog the tub so that I can slowly feel the weight of his body press into mine as the water empties out. I want to support him while his blood searches out the sea.