“The music playing softly over some speakers, the words oblivious to anything else going on around. "Come away with me". The little bell on top of the door opening to the street rang each time it opened.”

i have been telling this story for years
most people think it's a made up joke
but let me show you the high relief
fingernail scars on my ******* and
back let me take you
back to the basement made of music
back to the beat of the drums
back to the bumping grinding and *******
back to the girl i fingered on the field trip bus when we were 14
jesus christ i'm sorry okay we were only kids then
playing an obsessive tug of war game with
her wrists weighing my handlebar collarbones down
while exhaust fumes belched warm through the floorboards
her ankles wrapped sinuously around my ankles
the sun peeling through the windows like a nectarine
she straddled her first white stallion ******
buzzing like a wind up toy on my teenage knuckles
two years later in high school she was my tutor but
we learned more about *** than computer science
she showed up ***** in a corset get up
to my best friend's halloween party
where i was dead set on getting hammered
she set me on fire with her feral hair
and her feline eyes begged to become the nail
i was drawn to her like a planet being pulled
into the orbit of a red dwarf star and after she
danced the boogaloo with her hips
sequestering my glittered face
i became a deep sea diver on the dancefloor
facemask and snorkel full of sweetmeats and sap
her thighs covered in salty drool and
shrieks cutting through the *** cloud atmosphere
building into a honking goosey crescendo
we took a steamy cold shower together afterward
and i really saw god's big face when
her eyelashes licked the fog off the bathroom mirror
and she proved to be a balloon knot artist
with grape sized ******* and a soda straw
tongue like a butterfly imagine me squealing on tiptoes
in the bathtub clawing toward the shower mouth overhead
with her laughing underneath creating a complex layer
of parrot echo-thunder tapping my lowest vertebrae
internally in a sophisticated cole porter rhythm
i've slept trembling crooked on the bed ever since
with beads of sweat arranged on my upper lip
remembering the gleam of the baby oil bottle standing
proud in the corner of the shower receiving window starlight
and waking up with smears of wet lipstick embedded
in the secret tender spots of my body and the leftover
sound of her fingernails raking through
the stubble on my sensitive cheeks

she finally told me her secret flippantly
the night before i went to jail
in the safe shadow of
soft candle flame snuggery

oh just pure mdma and ******* sprinkled on my tongue

Don't you cry now,
Your world will always be alright.
This chapter of your life is one of many,
So don't dwell on me now I'm out of sight.

I'm starting to cry now,
As my world has never been alright.
I'll have to end these painful chapters short,
So you won't dwell on me once I'm out of sight

It's hard to write a poem
When there's nothing going on
It's hard to think of what to say
When you've given most of it away

As poets we never scratch the surface
We delve within, disclose our deepest sin
We crave our pain, declare it's for our art
Yet more often than not have no idea where to start

But start we do and start we must
A deep desire in all of us
To spill out on the written page
What little bit we have tried to save

Ink now is the poets blood
Fragments of self pour from within
Silence is our safety net
To stop us from bleeding out

Although it's hard to write a poem
With nothing going on
We still find words to form a verse
From deep within our marrow bone

Work © Mike Hauser & © Sia Jane