We are raised to fall in love. We are wired
to find someone, something, to make us happy.
We are told that it cannot be done alone. Hand flat
against my thigh. Neck crooked, arched in the broken
bone agony of release. Round rings of red inflammation litter
the surface area making up the forearms where ember
once touched skin. Each stroke of the canvas sizzling
into life with a calm hiss. Whites of sallow eyes are
juxtaposed by the dark rings around them before shutting
themselves to darkness. Another stroke, another hiss.
Head tilted back and our body is not our own. Her face is mine.
Our face is our own twisted in slack-jawed ecstasy.
Another, another. Clenched hands stretch lifetimes
across paneled floors. Remember the first time.
There in the laundry room. Pierced skin. Burnt flesh.
Remember the pain. Another, another. The *******
revulsion of knowing it is never going to end. The feeling
of emptiness. The feeling of never being whole again.
Another. Knowing that the body is only the conduit.
The surface area on which to catalyze reaction.
Where we end and we begin. It is all one body. Our hand.
Yes. Our neck. Yes. Our face. Our forearm. Our needle.
It is all one body. Another, another, we need another.
Melted into one. We twist and moan and **** and
bleed and bite and destroy another and another
and another. We are all the same. No longer feel
the cigarette, twisted and held in cauterized flesh.
Quickly. Each ******, each stroke a beautiful painting.
Colors blur the walls of vision and we are all the same and we
are all the same and we are all the same. Another.
We are raised to fall in love. We are raised to fall in love.
Another, another. We are all the same. Where do we end.
We are all the same. We are raised to fall in love.
Where do we begin. We are wired to find external happiness.
The needle in the haystack. Where do we begin.
There is a disconnect between the ideal and that first,
****** ******. There, in the laundry room, needle in my
arm and inside a girl I don’t remember.
Each stroke paints a perfect picture. Her face is mine.
Remember the first. Remember the last.
We are all the same. There is
no end. There is no beginning.
We are all the same.
We are raised to fall in love.
There is a disconnect.
Each ****** ******,
each whispered hiss.
Oblivion.

Here we come, happiness.