Lurking Cobra

I have to tell you the truth:
there's a cobra lurking just beneath the skin
and coiling through your veins.

"I love you" and "I'm sorry" and "Please, come home with me"
drip like poison from your fangs.

I know the weight of a lie, darling;
I search for the scent of others of my sex in every shadowed corner;
We cohabitate.
I regularly check your sock drawer for love letters and ring boxes,
for any sign that this isn't just another hunt for you,
but I know it's the hunger talking
when you whisper those things late at night.

The stitching on my heart is slowly unraveling,
All my clumped-up stuffing flows out of me dying to escape;
sometimes,
I lose myself in the beat of your heart
under my skin
and the sigh of my name
from your pouting lips...
but I don't remember leaving
That hickey on your chest.

Maybe that's the crazy me talking.

I've always heard them talk about the last threads of sanity;
You are pushing pins and buttons farther than they should be pushed.
How I can rearrange my face every time,
Astonishes even me,
because there's a cobra in you
and it's slithering toward your heart,
and I know your blank eyes well enough now
to know you aren't really looking at me
when you whisper about love.

Thank you for converting me into a mad-woman,
but I'll let myself out the back door.