The words meant nothing to me.
Said plainly over a dinner plate.
The following morning was a Sunday.
I awoke next to a stranger.
I’m in my bed, although I can’t be sure.
I remember that our hands were clasped.
The crepuscular rays of the sun.
Washed over the mottled linen bed sheets.
I did not move.
As the slow decay of skin cells.
Floated about the gloom.
Fearful to make even the slightest sound.
It was peaceful to watch her sleep.
I could trace her features unnoticed.
Those uncompromising lines.
That stretch out for miles and miles.
Beneath the impenetrable heap.
Her body still bore the perplexing mystery.
Her shallow breathing rose and fell in curious cadence.
A bird called from outside the window.
Beyond the window laid another dimension.
Of that I was certain.
I now know I don’t know.
An avalanche of brown hair spilled across the pillow.
A lock gently touched my shoulder.
I know I don’t know.
It’s too beautiful.
I find her beautiful.
Softly, womanly, but I know.
Hidden in the between places.
Of her creamy folds.
I can smell the vile.
The living molds.
That wrenching scent.
The dead scent.
I think I can’t possibly love her, can I?
Not like this.
Not now.
Bitter was the taste.
The nectar that flows.
Savage from her face.
And across her toes.
Meeting jaggedly always in the folds.
Hidden in the lines of her smile.
And in the lines of her crows’ feet.
Between the white and yellowed sweat-stained sheets.
Lies the sweat-stained mare.
Her bulbous dark *******.
That capture the dull, blank wanton glances of lesser men.
Twice her age.
All men are lesser men.
Their smiles trickle down the inside of her leg.
Trickling out.
I can’t love her, I think.
She is unclean.
Very unclean.
Yet I want her.
To take her within me.
The carnal want.
To hold her body, close to mine.
In my trembling.
Hands ravenous.
Against her soul.
In this gentle light.
Of this gentle dawn.
How I wish I were.
Not a man but something other.
Something more.
Like a god of man.
But, she is not worthy of a god.
As I am no god.
We are no good.
We are of one flesh.
Made from the other’s bone.
Our bones.
Are all we leave behind.
So, when she wakes.
I’ll already be gone.
