I test the nib of the fountain pen against my finger,
Testing its sharpness, its edges.
Then I place the point against the pale moonlight of my flesh,
And push it slowly between two ribs, skin parting reluctantly.
I carefully work it deeper into the hole created by the head, the nib disappearing into the red secrets of my insides,
Rivulets of blood running past the smooth black edges, designed to be gripped comfortably, ergonomically while writing,
Red falling down past the grasping circle of my white skin.
The tip ****** my heart, still beating too slowly, too wounded, and with a twist blood fills the compartment made for ink.
I am made of paper white and ink black anyway.

I am a tangle of wild keyed up emotion that roars beneath my skin.

You could be forgiven for thinking restraints held me down as I sit here in the dark,
for thinking I was strapped into this chair.

Nails digging into --

flesh

-- the wood of the armrests.

Muscles straining and perfectly still.

If I don’t move, maybe it will quiet.

If I don’t move, maybe it will leave me alone;

No longer lashing into my brain,

Self-flagellation demanding more,

Harder, faster, more

More pain to feed the craving for escape, to punish for the regrets and failure, to show that there is striving, progress, as I strain to be else.

Maybe if I hold still this need for pain, punishment, this urgent desire to outpace myself will rest.

It is louder than my own thoughts, but not the ragged breaths pulled from my chest when I have exhausted my own ability to tear one step further down the street

I wish I could tear a hole in the fabric of the world and disappear somewhere new, somewhere the hornets’ nest of my own thoughts would be unable to follow me.

I am so proud, so indefatigable in defence of myself.
You bring me down, down to my knees, hard enough to make me bleed, grit in the wounds and
I will kneel here, while you circle, show you my devotion if you would but look;
I am little more to you than a supplicant.
Oh feel my hands clasped together in prayer, whispered words that wind their way round you;
Feel my wanting, feel my wine drunk breath, holy communion is so close at hand.
You could take me palm to palm,
Kisses just like saints have done,
Know that I burn for you, on my hands and knees.
I’ve never begged before, but for you I’d pray
For you I’d wait forever, in sanctity and ablution till my skin grew cold beneath holy waters.

You are right next to me
I can’t touch you though I want to
You don’t understand
What I’m risking letting you so close
How few people can say they’ve seen me
Like this

Vices, circling tighter.
I have slid back into them like a hand into a dish glove,
Only to find lingering soapy water in the fingers.
They don’t do what I want them to do,
Don’t relieve my misery as I had hoped.
And I burn burn burn like a circle of hell,
While trapped in my own ring of fire.
I think about you.
But that’s not enough either.
What is?
The chains get a better hold of me.
I take a deep breath
and let myself be pulled under.

I saw your skittles earlier.
Wasn’t planning on thinking about you,
The whole **** day through,
But if I’m honest —
And I am —
That was going to happen anyway.
Want you back.
Back here with me.
Still waiting for you to be somewhere I can watch your *******.
Counting the days,
Till you fly back to me,
And if you have an objection to the phrasing of that —
You can stuff it.