Untried

It tastes like crumb cake and smells of old spice.
It sounds of pure perfection and feels of the untried.
But the way it looks, from here, I wish I couldn’t say.
It’s dark, uncertain, and underlined with pain.

The more I stare into it, the less I know myself.
There’s a woman standing there, begging for something else.
She looks like me but frightened. She sounds like me but scared.
She feels things more intensely than I ever would have dared.

I try to make her smile, to tell her it’s all right.
She shakes her head and tells me that sadness is her plight.
She tells me through a brittle glass she saves me every day,
harboring the heartache to make it go away.

— For me, she makes it clear, pushing back her tears.
It has to go somewhere, so it might as well come here.
The levity I feel has been all at her expense;
my view of life protected by her rose-colored lens.

I ask if she would leave this place. She tells me that she would.
But, she warns, with grimace set, it will do more harm than good.
Could you bear to be confronted with the truth I locked inside?
Once you know, once you feel, there’s nowhere left to hide.

The terror slithers through me, a slug of putrid grief.
I could leave her here to suffer and harden my belief
— that I am where I should be, justified and safe.
Who would choose to stay here, if they could leave this place?

I tell her that I’m grateful for her strength across these years.
This fragile wall of glass has spared me many tears.
She tells me not to pity her. She sees the world as it lives and breathes,
while I have been content to ignore the forest for the trees.

Who would want to feel pain? I ask self-righteously.
What good could come of it? What use is it to me?
She speaks no words, yet her glistening eyes captivate my being.
There is no better way to grow than the plight of feeling.

One pale hand upon the glass shatters my protection.
All those things I locked away cry for resurrection.
I curse her loudly before accepting this is my own design.
I’d been pretending all was well; pretending to be fine.

Faced with all my demons, I clatter to the ground.
I taste, I smell, I feel the longing. I’m broken by the sound.
It smells like crumb cake and old spice, like nights sat by the pool.
It hurts. It hurts. I feel it burning. Nothing feels so cruel.

My heart twists inside my chest. My eyes are overflowing.
There is no pain, there is no pain, quite like the plight of knowing.

Rough

Fuck the status quo and the bitches who won't bleed.

Come and get it, if you want it. I'm in the mood to scream.

I'm a goddamn dominatrix tripping on my own fucking leash.

Still, I could make your world sweat. Baby, on your knees.

I'm a snake around your apples, hungry raptor in the trees.

Love's a joyous paralytic, and I'm ready to receive.

Fingers laced around our necks, thighs entwined in sheets.

Dappled purples, mottled blues. Honey, dig in deep.

I don't live on the edge, I'm the fucking razor blade.

Slap and kiss me, push me, choke me.
There is no pleasure without pain.

Bite me with your tongue, lick me with your teeth.

Maybe after all, you'll find a good girl underneath.

Long

I want the type of love that people envy. Not because I want the attention, but because I want to know that I have something that people rarely find.

I want passion. I want a man who will push me against the wall and ravage me. I want more in his mind than lust. I want to mean something to someone. I want to mean everything to someone. I want to be his every waking thought. I want to exist where I do not.

I want frantic kisses in bed and someone else’s sweat on my chest. I want a man who will accept my sexuality with all of its kinky attributes. I want a man who will suit my animalistic needs but who still knows how to make love.

I want romance. I want tender kisses and warm hugs. I want a body pressed against mine. I want a man’s arms around me in a loving physical silence. I want to belong to someone, and I want him to belong to me. I want those butterflies when he whispers in my ear. I want him to say sweet things and mean them.

I want a man who will appreciate me as a woman instead of a plaything, who will use me as his rock and not his whore. I want cold nights and hot kisses. I want lingering tongues and trembling pulses.

I want a man who will challenge me intellectually but never find joy in my ignorance. I want honesty so impenetrable that it hurts. I want a man who has no qualms about sinking his teeth into me. I want a man who knows what safety words are for. I want a man who always wants me but has the self control to wait. I want a place to cry but never a reason. I want love so radiant that it shines in my eyes and reflects in his.

I want spontaneity. I want kisses in the rain and company in a storm. I want love on a soft floor. I want someone to make happy. I want to run my fingers through his hair and rake my nails across his back. I want to please him in every way I know how. I want to take his bottom lip in my teeth and milk a vibrating moan from his mouth.

I want laughter so pure that we sound ridiculous together. I want corn and fluff. I want unabashed comical relief. I want his smile imprinted in my memory but never the need to recall it. I want a man who hugs me from behind and nibbles on my ear. I want a man who relishes in the simple sensation of fingers tracing invisible pictures on his back. I want a man who calls me just to hear my voice.

I want a lover. I want a friend. I want days to crawl across the sleepiness within a white hammock. I want fights to end completely without harbored anger or remorse. I want arguments to end in sex. I want a man who understands what makes a relationship last and puts it into practice. I want a man who loves massages—giving and receiving.

I want a man who’s vocal. I want to hear his pleasure in rippling groans that flex and tense his torso. I want silence to disappear in the shadow of ecstasy but blanket the times when nothing must be said. I want a man who knows the value of the word “beautiful.” I want to believe him when he says it.

I want instant heat between my legs at the sight of him. I want his hands. I want dripping sarcasm in wine glasses. I want his voice to be my aphrodisiac. I want his lips to hesitate above mine for a split second to intensify what is to come.

I want a man who appreciates the dying art of the written romantic letter. I want tea for two and cuddling on the couch. I want Jimmy Stewart nights and Kevin Smith nights. I want slow dancing for no reason. I want him to tell me what to wear so he can look at me hungrily all night long. I want Chinese takeout, chopsticks, and pajamas. I want really bad kisses… with good ones to make up for them.

I want lips, tears, teeth, nails, leather, lace, flesh, and metal. I want parallel heads with an annex for dreams. I want messy perfection.

And I want.
And I want.
And I want.

Nature

There is levity in sorrow
and laughter in pain,
a smile to be had in the wake of heartache.

Through the deceptive fog of tears
there is life on the other side,
a corporeal terminus to the mist.

There is comfort in the terror
and perseverance despite fear,
a drive within the bones to find the joke in the anguish.

It is too easy to dwell where shadows hide us,
too risky to speak the truth.
But moving on never means forgetting.

It's a compulsion that sweeps us into our compulsory misfortunes,
requisite vexations,
and the crippling disappointments.

But there is always hope in our failings,
a thrill to the struggle,
and the potential for desire freshly sparked.

Evolved

Sometimes this coursing blood
runs redder than a sea
of battles fought and sadly lost
amidst endless debauchery.

Sometimes these veins constrict
to thin this wild life
of incessant pain and desolation,
of misery and strife.

Sometimes these bones they weaken
beneath so rough a skin
that pales with every sunrise,
that hardens from within.

Sometimes this heart it shatters,
breaks, crumbles in this chest;

adverse to palpitations,
begs, pleads, for simple rest.

Sometimes these barren eyes
mirror sand and ardent flame;
they glass with deprivation,
and will never be the same.

Fluid

I am your toy to mangle,
your slave to suppress with chains,
the mud ensnared upon your sole,
your peeling flakes of skin.

I am your pawn to sacrifice,
your dog to starve at will,
the rain cast from your fingertips,
your exuded drops of sweat.

I am your experiment to ruin,
your voodoo doll to stab,
the saliva which you expectorate,
your faithful lover in your bed.

Flaw

Yesterday I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, You're beautiful. You're gorgeous! You're friendly and funny and fiercely passionate about what matters to you and the people you love. You're clever and adventurous. There's something that burns inside you like copper sulfate, haunting, ethereal. It scares people. It excites them. It makes them want to experiment with you. It draws them in and your personality makes them stay. Things are fine. You are okay.

Today that certainty fell to ash. My fire intimidates others. Once they get too close they see, by the light of my own passion, that I am ugly. I'm an oasis in the desert, a siren with a fish head. I'm too much and not enough. Not worth the trouble, not good enough. Never a perfect fit. I may still be funny, but the less someone likes you, the less they're inclined to laugh.

Soon you'll scare everyone away, I tell myself. And no one will laugh. You will cease to be funny. All you'll be left with is your wit, which will turn to cynicism, which will wrinkle and tear at your face and heart.

Confidence flits and flutters. It fades and frays. A useless friend. A liar. A thief.

But without it, I am miserable. Without it, I am nothing to anyone, no one. I have no future, no hope, no cause, no goal. Without it, I am alone. Doubly alone because I do not even have the support of my self.

Fickle friend. 

Faustian foe.

Tomorrow it might be back. When I've picked myself up and convinced me that I no longer need it, there it will be.

Laughing.

Inescapable.

Necessary.

Evil.