my safeword is ~ "harder"
I was born with a ruler in my fist.
Not to measure curtains or coffins,
but to press against the welt rising on my thigh
and whisper: there, that is real.
The world speaks too much in vapor.
Love you.
Trust me.
I didn’t mean it.
Cloud-words, steam escaping a mouth
that has already forgotten its own weather.
But pain,
pain is a red signature.
It does not revise itself.
I learned early:
what can be seen can be entered.
What can be entered can be known.
Bruise blooming like a slow violet gospel
beneath the skin’s pale altar.
I do not have to read between those lines.
Most people are riddles wrapped in perfume,
their wants moving like fish under black water.
They say kindness
but mean hunger.
They say forever
but mean until bored.
Their eyes flicker with small economies.
I grew tired of deciphering.
Tired of psychoanalysis in dim kitchens,
of tracing childhood ghosts in the curve of a smile.
The unconscious is a labyrinth
with no minotaur—
just mirrors breeding mirrors.
So I chose the clean arithmetic.
If you want my body,
say body.
If you want my knees,
say knees.
Use is a verb without metaphor.
It has weight.
It has duration.
It leaves marks I can catalog
like saints catalog relics.
Here: the wrist, faint band of rope-burn,
three centimeters.
Here: the shoulder, crescented teeth,
four small moons.
Proof of transaction.
No subtext.
In surrender there is a strange geometry.
A narrowing of variables.
A quieting of the terrible choir
of what-did-you-mean.
When I kneel,
I am not unraveling motives.
I am not excavating your mother’s grief
or your father’s silence.
I am not a detective of your damaged cathedral.
I am a surface.
I am sensation.
I am the measurable field.
And in that field
I exist without speculation.
Some call it self-destruction.
They prefer their illusions upholstered.
They prefer love that requires translation,
faith that requires footnotes.
But I have seen too many counterfeit halos.
Better the visible welt
than the invisible lie.
Better the contract of flesh
than the fog of intention.
When the palm descends
and the nerve-flare sings up my spine,
there,
is certainty.
Not romance.
Not destiny.
Not salvation.
Just impact.
Just contact.
Just this body answering to gravity.
And afterward,
alone,
I trace the swelling map of myself
as if I were both cartographer and country.
I press the tender place
and feel the sharp starburst.
Yes.
Still here.
Still real.
Feb 23
Feb 23, 2026 at 8:13 PM UTC
my safeword is ~ "harder"
I was born with a ruler in my fist.
Not to measure curtains or coffins,
but to press against the welt rising on my thigh
and whisper: there, that is real.
The world speaks too much in vapor.
Love you.
Trust me.
I didn’t mean it.
Cloud-words, steam escaping a mouth
that has already forgotten its own weather.
But pain,
pain is a red signature.
It does not revise itself.
I learned early:
what can be seen can be entered.
What can be entered can be known.
Bruise blooming like a slow violet gospel
beneath the skin’s pale altar.
I do not have to read between those lines.
Most people are riddles wrapped in perfume,
their wants moving like fish under black water.
They say kindness
but mean hunger.
They say forever
but mean until bored.
Their eyes flicker with small economies.
I grew tired of deciphering.
Tired of psychoanalysis in dim kitchens,
of tracing childhood ghosts in the curve of a smile.
The unconscious is a labyrinth
with no minotaur—
just mirrors breeding mirrors.
So I chose the clean arithmetic.
If you want my body,
say body.
If you want my knees,
say knees.
Use is a verb without metaphor.
It has weight.
It has duration.
It leaves marks I can catalog
like saints catalog relics.
Here: the wrist, faint band of rope-burn,
three centimeters.
Here: the shoulder, crescented teeth,
four small moons.
Proof of transaction.
No subtext.
In surrender there is a strange geometry.
A narrowing of variables.
A quieting of the terrible choir
of what-did-you-mean.
When I kneel,
I am not unraveling motives.
I am not excavating your mother’s grief
or your father’s silence.
I am not a detective of your damaged cathedral.
I am a surface.
I am sensation.
I am the measurable field.
And in that field
I exist without speculation.
Some call it self-destruction.
They prefer their illusions upholstered.
They prefer love that requires translation,
faith that requires footnotes.
But I have seen too many counterfeit halos.
Better the visible welt
than the invisible lie.
Better the contract of flesh
than the fog of intention.
When the palm descends
and the nerve-flare sings up my spine,
there,
is certainty.
Not romance.
Not destiny.
Not salvation.
Just impact.
Just contact.
Just this body answering to gravity.
And afterward,
alone,
I trace the swelling map of myself
as if I were both cartographer and country.
I press the tender place
and feel the sharp starburst.
Yes.
Still here.
Still real.
