why i bleed ink

Change of person

The first half of the poem is addressed to "you" the second to "them."

'You recoil,' and 'your cuffs' might maintain the strength of the first half better.
Does the gift need to be stated as "inappropriate" or would ' this gift ' convey the inappropriatness without the need to say so? Dunno, but worth asking perhaps.

But still a strong idea.

Butters , if you bled " ink " instead of "blood" should the fourth line be

" beatin' , inky " instead of " beatin' , bloody " ? thanks for sharin' this evocative poem .

It might be intriguing to mesh this with "cathedral of bone." I see some similarities in them.

I see you've dropped the last two lines in this version; too bad, I liked them. I was thinking about the "bleeding ink" part, and it comes to me that writing words on a page is a way to "bleed ink", but that a cephalopod squirts ink when it needs to hide. What does it mean? I don't know. Just came to me. :)