Sebastian Merrill

Why I Left You: Reason #19

I cut myself
shaving: nick
on my neck,
bright blood.
The red pearl
reminds me of
the rust stain
on my sheets
after you fucked
me in the ass
for the first time,
the moon-pull
of my period,
the carmine curl
after my injection:
testosterone
suspended in
cottonseed oil.
Once, I offered
to show you
how each week
I stab through skin,
puncture the hard
scar tissue beneath,
the slow plunge
of the needle
into my body.
Already watched
a video, you said.
As though that
was the same.
Look at me now:
see the silver fish
of the needle, see
my muscle
tremble, blood.

Sebastian Merrill’s poetry has appeared in wildness, Passages North, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. His manuscript GHOST :: SEEDS was selected by Kimiko Hahn as the winner of the 2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize and will be forthcoming in Fall 2023 from Texas Review Press. He has served as a reader for The Paris Review and has received fellowships and support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Friends of Writers, and the Academy of American Poets. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson and a BA in English Literature from Wellesley College. www.sebastianmerrill.com