I’ll Be Your Animal

Not in any mood for talking or company, I slip my key in the front door and effectively fall into the arms of the words which have been eating at me all day. In two shakes, my grandmother used to say this, two shakes, sometimes adding of a lamb’s tail, which I can still picture her saying with a smile, I’m in sweatpants, hair tied up in a messy bun, uncorking a chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand because when given the choice, always New Zealand. The wine is glorious as it blooms and blossoms throughout my body, soothing my jacked nerves, calming my racing mind. It’s not that I can’t think straight at the office (ok, to be fair, that is sometimes debatable) but there is a constant current running underneath my veins, pulling in the opposite direction of this world, tugging me back into myself and into myself is made of words. I read other writers who are so beautiful at what they do it makes my stomach sick, and then I read them again, raking the fingers of my mind through their words as if mining for gold. We want each other but mostly we want each other’s secrets. We want to unlock the codes of the universe so that we won’t feel so useless, so insignificant. We want to be close enough to peer into the abyss of another soul to be sure they are as messed up as we are. Beauty is for lovers and seduction is for strangers and the way we present ourselves is always slightly askew. There are times when I think I know myself so clearly, but then times when I think I don’t know myself at all. There is a deep fear I carry in the center of my chest, a black feathered crippling thing which quivers and shakes. Mostly I try to hide it but when we fuck it’s the reason being restrained feels like heaven and hell all tied into one. The sight of you is like seeing a ghost. Looking at your face, I remember things about myself that I can never change, can never repent for because the hour is too late. Something in the brute strength of your jaw reminds me of all of my sins and bad decisions. Are there people out there who have done it all right and do they feel good about it or do they stare at the ceiling wide awake in the cold hours of the morning, desperate to break free of an existence scripted only by the others? When you lie there alone in your bed and the static darkness sinks its whispered breath inside of you, do you touch yourself while thinking of me? In my mind I lay you down and feed you my poetry as you lick your tongue along the smooth tenderness of my thigh. Tell me how it makes you feel. Tell me, how does it taste with my words in your mouth?