... Thumpthump, thumpthump. 1st thump, beats so hard it rips out of your chest cavity. Into the hand of your partner. For a second your life is in the palm of their hands. You can’t live without them. Breathe without them. 2nd thump, beats so hard it pushes back into your chest cavity. Given back from the hand of your partner. For a second your life is back, heart where it belongs. But this time it doesn’t fit quite right. You need stitches. You receive scars. You can feel your blood pumping, again. But it’s never quite the same. Your partner didn’t borrow your heart. There was no “return with care” label. No library books with due dates and late fees. Only torn pages from too many hands. The crease, broken. Ink smudged from spilled coffee during too many shared mornings. The pages still in tact, but they don’t fit quite right. How do I know this time it will be different?
But here I am.
I lay before you the formula of an overbeating heart. Thumpthump, thumpthump. 1st thump, beats so hard. when I see you. when i feel you. when i think of you. I rip it out of my chest cavity. I beg for you to take it. Scraps and bruises. It hurts to rip it out. Hurts worst for it to stay in. Give me gluten free pancakes. Avocado with lime. Morning, afternoon, night ***. Meetings with toilet seats after too much to drink. Crying over life. Me crying over you crying over life. Late night pleads when the bed feels empty. Spotify playlists, the millennial version of mixed tapes. 2nd thump, beats so hard you can’t hold it anymore. Slips out of your hand. Bright red blood smears. I try and scrape it off the floor. Too much. Too late. Try and fill my empty cavity with. Kisses. Sorrys.
But here I am.
This is the part when medusa turned me to stone. This is the part when jack the ripper follows me home. This is the part when the mirror on the wall says the prettiest of all is you. I am the queen who stalks you through the glass. I am the queen who gets jealous when you hold hands with another girl. I am the queen who hid from the king to see the princess. I am the queen you run away from. I am the queen who wears a disguise just so you notice me. I am the queen who gave you the poisonous apple. I was the one who was suppose to kiss you. I am the queen who lead you to your one true love.

Bump,thump,bump,thump.... the bass cases shake and quake  
Secreting heat, my skin blushes, that rush of a new secret crush.
She passes and her scent renders all around helpless.
The DJ's plush talons tow and myre you soul's wires.  
Seeping through, the beak crushing your conscience,  
falling, sleep down, the sound grounds you.  
Sowing the seeds of desire on the stone below.  
Called by the thumping, bumping beat,  
You jump from your seat into a market of meat, a sea of shifting feet.  
10,000 lights spin like sugar bright.  
Blood fuels your feet,  
feats of flight,  
blurs of sight.  
Spinning like cotton candy with all your might.  
Body overheating, heart overbeating, grains of lust over seeding.  
Your scars begin to heal as glassy eyes not blue appeal to your "at first sight" senses.  
Senses slow there motion to primal, tingling too much,  
not too much to touch, no sting as such.  
Such a blissful kiss t'would be from she before thee.  
Snip the wire.  
Feed the desire.  
The need grows to fan passion fire.  
The potent scent of dripping skin steams up like the devotional incline of nine combined love potions.  
Love, as real love, survives as only a notion in this moving motion of lust's contrived plot...  
But to feel alive, even for a moment,  
love's emotion fails... drawing bust to the ever opulent opponent of lust;  
a proponent to disguise the potent demise of the heart's conscious component.  
Gas and smoke blows.  
Beats high and low.  
The dancing mass of suppressed woes ebbs and flows,  
capturing the seconds, snatching your essence, rapturing your ethics.  
Feeding the peak you seek, heart weak, roaring soul silenced to squeak.  
Waning away your stay with the sweating sea of swing and sway leaves you adrift.  
The waves of the DJ begin to hammer you into enamerment  
Did this quaking wake the sober state of your forsakenness?  
That complaicent stained vacant place aching to be filled.  
A painful, dizzying blood rush floods your mind and muck the feeling first struck secret love crush  
Were the judgment-blurring thoughts occurring so alluring? They fought off pure thoughts sought before she heart-stopped me.  
In light of a moment caught, wrought with knots of naughty thoughts.  
Light and sound and the thumping, bumping ground drown your bounds. 
No more, no more. 
"Now I remember" internally sounds, profound rebounds. 
Lore from before when the last passing blue-eyed leggy lass tore the door off your soul's core.  
No more, no more.  
The crush becomes dust. You become stone.  
Cut to the bone. No seed will be sewn.
You face the floor and breathe. alone.
  
 "Cameo Theater South Beach"   
R. Craig David-Copyright 1995