He takes his skin off to sleep, and, well, last night I wore it. Just around the house of course. It’s not weird if you’re in love.

None of it’s weird. The conjoining of two bodies. The peeling away of each others’ eyelids, licking the corneas, tasting the salt.

Every night, we reach deep into rib cavities, pluck an artery here and there, wrap them

around our junkstore bed frame.

Our warning: Don’t forget, you’re mine now and forever.

It’s just the two of us here, in this apartment; just his constant snoring, my muttering fury. It’s just the sound of our defecations, heavy breathing, padding around on skinless heels. Bone on hardwood floor, a satisfying thunk thunk. We joke that he’s my beloved pirate. That I’m his mistress, his lady.

But I am the ocean, I am the sea.

 

#

 

Each morning when we wake up—skin settling over calcium-rich bones—he and I share a cup of coffee nestled under a crisp comforter.

Littered with fingernails and bits of yesterday’s toast, we’ve made a home together.

He jokes, We are living in sin!

He teases, when will we marry?

He cries, my darling, end this torture!

No, I say, for you cannot tear your husband, I’m sure of it!

Cannot cut his throat, cannot rip his ear, cannot care what he wants for dinner.

You cannot throw a husband in front of the subway car, cannot toss him against the mirrored bedroom wall, cannot hide behind insidious eyes.

No, with a ring there between us, you must purely love him.

And a love pure, I do not have. Mine is competitive, blind, hateful and spiteful. It ebbs and dies every few years, lusting after neighbors, smudges of oil on the glass.

On the couch we watch sweaty celebrities form alliances, and his toenails scratch my calves, his calloused hands caress my back, my teeth grind in bitter love.

 

#

 

Afterward, I watch as he carefully unzips his fleshy coat, zips down his round man-belly, zips gently beside his penis and right between the two balls. I watch as his pure white skeletal legs step out, one at a time. I gaze as he pulls the skin from his sinewy arms, from his long, slender fingers. And finally, I gape as he removes his cheeks, his perfect ears, and lastly, his scalp of thick black hair. He folds his skin neatly and sets it on the desk where I write little poems by day.

He lies down beside me, like every night, and lets out a contented sigh.

 

#

 

I wait, silent, for an hour, two, before I step gingerly into him. I want to own him, love him, be him, to understand such an imbecile who believes in marrying me.

In his skin, I remake our love.

In his skin, our love is sunrise and sunset. It stumbles through the door after a long night of drinking, beautiful and sweating and tramping in garbage and rainwater from the street. It glows, throwing our favorite record on, our love lets the music skip skip skip, pan fries a few pierogies or dumplings or pancakes, makes a pot of coffee to sober up, makes a whiskey and coke to numb down, kisses me wildly, messily, throws things, rips things. Clothes here, clothes there, sex that is good or bad, the promise of both.

In his skin, our love is spitting on each other, smoking on the fire escape and realizing our milk has gone bad. Our love is laughter and cackling, hateful and mean, reckless and full. It is reading and rereading and falling asleep and closing door after door and getting old old old. Drinking each other, and finding comfort in the skin, in the smell of one another, stale and acidic. It’s in the flesh wrapping around muscles, the bones going deeper, into, pulling and pushing. It’s the twinkling lights that surround the shelving, and the deck of cards worn by sun and sea and sweat.

It’s a playlist he made me when I was nineteen.

 

#

 

In the early purple morning, I take off his skin like a jacket. It is stretched out from my evening, barely wearable, I worry.

He slumbers peacefully while I paste it onto his ivory frame with wood glue, covering his cagey ribs. I reconstruct the man I love, allowing his masculine features back. I tenderly ribbon red tendons around his forearms, and mold his chest into a soft but firm pillow. I reform his penis and balls, gluing and stitching, just as I remember them to be. I close my eyes while I do it. I even smile.

I caress the back of his legs and restructure the achilles into a relaxed position. I carve the clay skin of his neck, feel it passionately, mold it into something perfect, divine even.

He is beautiful. I lay his covered skull gently back on our white pillow. We’ve been together so long, neither one of us bleeds anymore.

I tuck the blankets around him, kiss the round of his cold forehead, and shuffle to the kitchen to make our morning coffee.

A black cup for him, coffee with vanilla for me.

I say good morning and I put on our favorite record and I apologize for last night.

He’s quiet, so quiet.

I wait.

“I’ll be better this time,” I promise, but he does not move.

The apartment is chaos, a tornado, a red and white painting.

I kiss, I touch, I pull, I bite.

Please. I beg. “I do I do I do!