I know you are here by
the crack
of your palm on
my cheek,
by the sting of
our sweat.
The second slap tugs at
my skin
with the stick of
the gin.
You scream through
the heat,
above the ambient rumble
of souls,
the unholy truth of
it all
spat with the cadence
of hate.
The cackled delights of
the night
and this pitiless death in
the streets.
The horror of your bones on
my bones.
I can still hear the muffled
bass beat
and the staircase-crashing
of feet
as you carve the word 'shame' in
my skin.
There is hope in
your hate
as you cry out
my crimes.
There is hope in
my pain
as old futures implode, and
this life
is replaced by something
quite new.

A Time Glitch
Hypnotised by the rattle-clank of wheel on world,
your eyelids sink, seduced into darkness
by the soporific roll of machinery.

The outside blurs and folds, the world overlaps.
Your chest begins to heave and slump with sightless breath
and mindless beat.

Caught somewhere between here and when, you slip
and fall into yourself, onto the bed,
the bed of a stranger. A soulmate.

You linger just a moment, a time glitch,
relieved by the horror, horrified by your relief
at the jolting pleasure between your parted thighs.

A molten bead of sweat, from his brow to yours,
branding you, marking you, claiming your skin
as his. You are one skin now.

And now, as if to take his newfound form,
you feel his hand at your neck, his palm on your throat,
your life in his grasp.

Surrender. He demands your submission not with his words,
but with his fingers: with the wheeze of your will
to live as it leaves.

And you do. Like you always will. For you know
that just as liberation is a form of control,
submission is its own power.

And just before your moment fades, you catch his eye;
that final instant is haunted by his furious love,
the adoring violence in his gaze.

It's over, and you wake to the strangle-gag of ghosts
to inhale the present. It fills you with sensation--
not feeling. You don't feel.

You can't.