Small rooms
of attention

A scent that pulses and possesses the senses, that rises in confrontation then backs down again, that moves like the tide, that drowns then leaves dry.

The scent of the meal, prepared by unseen hands, inhabits the interior. (Mouths open and moisten in expectation, then close to dam a flood of sickness.)

You understand your body, and we understand that our teeth are weak and can not sever the stitch-like sinews to taste what lies inside. Jaws break in an attempt to devour what they must.

(The rabid and starved dog madness is fatal, though shreddingly predictable. What we do is what we do, because it is what we do.)

And what we do is constantly cut these hours, trim these hours, these hours that cling like fat to the meat of the moment. Spices and side dishes distract but can not satiate.

If blood flows, blood flows. It's real, nothing more.

Know me as the Persephone who is at ease among the dead: seed-hungry and greedy, not wanting to ascend. Hateful of Hades for not giving me more. I deserve control.

Know also that I'm not happy this way — bone throne majesty in a kingdom of the moribund, playing master and jester, it doesn't get me anywhere.

Still, I can not care about a mother's tears and the world that suffers for them. And the world that suffers should suffer more for making a shade of me, for being ashamed and not afraid of me, for allowing me to adapt to this element. I can no longer breathe your air and you would drown in my waters

so I cultivate the waste, coax the blood and the scar to full bloom and make them mine. Comforting as pets, lasting as death, they're mine. They're all I have besides the lies that I must work my tongue like a ladle to stir to perfection.

It's hard, you know, and tiring trying always to be believed, not understood. It's almost a profession in this season unchanging.

You ice and crack my body, a winter wind. Never have I been so proud to be broken.

You taught me the joy of being taken without payment: the art of debasement. Attachments are easy, I don't ask for them.

You've shown me how disposable, how truly throw-away I am. When you do away with love, when you amputate the pride, the rest is bliss.

I learned not to ask for a leash or a place at the foot of your bed — See how well trained I am!

I know now that this is the death I was born for. My hands are yours for the chaining. My body, for whatever you please.

A hell of cells a cell of cells, bones, they hold like iron bars.

Skin hangs on me like a suit: seemingly seamless but easily torn — moth-eaten, wrinkled with time and with wear. Eyes and hair and lips decorate and distract like costume jewelry.

My pale, frail sarcophagus pretends to bear a likeness to its contents, it suggests: a perfect fit. There's no rising out of it.

This weighty thing can never belong to anyone else. It has knotted its veins and needs with whatever strings hung free.

Not so much Siamese twins, as two wires fused, two photographs superimposed. The result is something new but not true, something wholly mine and assigned.

I. The umbilical cord (the womb's leash) can not be brought to bedroom sheets without first stretching and snapping. And love with all its trappings is siren appealing.

II. The gorgeous flesh, the breath and sex; the comfort of your sheltering chest. From mother to lover, sweet breast how you change!

III. Jealous as a man; and unwilling to give up any stock in me. Convinced that a devil has come to claim me, you guard me; I do not want it.

IV. Kiss me to keep me from ever leaving. Hold me to hide me from the cruel tyrant stalking.

V. From whence I came I wish to go back again. I can not swallow the bitter taste of your war. A dear possession am I to you, to her my own I am no more.

The leg-less limb-less dancer arms are lacking. A torso with nowhere to go.

Watch her. View her. Deny your hypnotized eyes, you will not. You will watch. Such is the way of our race.

Arenas and stadiums breaking the body to the beat of the crowd. They drink in the sight like wine.

We're out of our minds.