In the Arithmetic of Shadows

I remembered the blood between my legs. Suddenly and without consequence it flowed. Dark. Almost brown. As old as I was. As young as I had once been. Ragged stocking on the mantle. Scabbed father christmases doling out happiness in empty boxes.

I counted the hues. A rainbow of red. The naked dandelions still fucking behind our flesh. I picked the colors. One by one. From the gullitone of his kiss.

A constant red.

The thirst of the armor. The stench of skin.

Still there, but ready to be removed.

Little Lambs Not Lost

tacit pneumonias of orgasm
split her down the ribs

she is gutted like
the so many fish
he's caught before her

suffocated on the very
same air that lets him live.

i say tacit because
hurt is the shiest
of all the torments

and pneumonia because
there is no cure
but sometimes there's recovery

mary mary, what say you now
of the sheep you've lost?

Backdoors

Chrome vessels maul her thighs. In jaundiced clucks and and serrated stabs. Perforated breaths torn out of her chest. Hollowing covers. Shivering spirals echo the rape of her absense. Dead clouds in a dead sky. Crying tears already wept so often.

The vacuum of her cunt devours him. In monstrous heaves she chokes him all the way inside. Until there's nothing left to swallow except the slit of moonlight that decides the difference between them. The comma in every sigh that comes after this.

Insinuations scattered like dog shit. Willing us to step in them. His touch like cum on her face. Only serving to make her a victim.

He never loved her until she cried for him.

But by then it was too late.

Celluloid Statisticians

Certain details notice us before we do them. The sigh of the wastebasket as it catches the condom. Or some random breath that trundles over their lips. Too bored to inhale again. There's so much to learn about someone in the lapse between making the call and waiting for the food to be delivered.

How hungry they are. How long they can stand it. The way they'll remember you after it's over. An earnest fuck. A callous friend.

Certain details confess themselves at the most inopportune of moments. During a blow job. In the midst of an orgasm. The gauze slips from the lens. The real picture snatches its way into the film before you can stop yourself from pressing the button.

The real picture. All the details about yourself you never wanted to know. Irrevocably permanent.

Skin becomes a priest of sorts. Soiled confessional that names your penance. Face by face. Dick by dick. Until the blood is wine again. A thoughtless solvent. And you feel better.