“We’re cleared for takeoff,” the pilot announced, “settle in, our flight time to Atlanta will be 9 hours.”

The Gulfstream roared down the runway and in a moment the tops of trees flashed by. We climbed quickly, and banked. Paris dwindled, the Seine became a string of blue, the world a patchwork of colors before we punched through a layer of hair-like cirrus clouds.

My roommates and friends were all a-chatter as we lined up on the runway but as we ascended, they grew quiet.

Thoughts of Peter ran through me and gripped me like a serpent. The last time I saw him he was dressed in a summer outfit I bought him - a short-sleeve, pale-pastel-plaid seersucker shirt, kentucky-derby breaker shorts, pop color flip flops and a straw fedora. His sweet-face was all grin, he looked like a deck gillespie. Meow.

When I think about Peter, my skin tickles, my pulse accelerates, I’m confuddled. I think about the disturbance that moved through the air between us when we met. We were strangers, but a magnetic flux seemed to roll off him and break against me.

I didn’t let it show. I drew in, looked away and became quiet. What else could I do? Later, when I described it to Sunny, our meeting seemed like nothing. When I described it to Lisa, it sounded like too much.

Of course, my choices must be consistent with my ambitions, but I want Peter to come to Athens, so badly. He was a human placebo, for me, in otherwise stressful times. Now I want to be with him without school pressures - to see what that’s like - and get closer, a lot closer.

I don’t want commitment, but I’m saturated with desire. All I want is a fun July or August - with him. I seldom reveal the businesslike hardness I have buried inside. I want this and I’m ready for derp.

Peter worries - about money, about gender roles, social positions and what’s apposite. I don’t care about any of that. I want to give him a free month, like an amazing gift. He’s so male, so deceptively complicated, fragile and intoxicating.

I really need to think about this, and work it out - HA! - like I can think of anything else.

The Little Black Dress


The concrete city summer-heat will beat
most men into a state of distraction,
confess their sins w/o waiting for Miranda,
to warn them of their foolhardiness,
to warn them that silence is golden.

Some men will torch, not touch,
themselves to gain relief from city street heat,
Their loosened ties look like used nooses,
that have done some good hanging.

but not you babe, not you.

Sleeveless,
your shape shifts
effortlessly within,
a cool container,
your black sheath,
and what's underneath,
a knife in the heart of
most mortal, immoral men.

Black is the color of choice,
of les femmes fatales,
in the summertime, when we drink,
on rooftops, in search of a breeze,
and the lassies order silly drinks
with silly names, looking refreshing and
fetching, in their little black dresses.

Manhattan, my beloved, misshapen,
fingerling of an island-city-fortress-playground,
named such by the Algonquins,
the original poets-in-residence.

In a city of stone and brick
gets so **** miserable hot,
Good Humor melts instantaneously,
and the toasted almonds taste fried,
the papers report of Poets suffocating,
unable to exhale their own fiery breath!

But not you babe, not you,
in your Little Black Dress,
you suggest all is well with world,
perhaps I should try one as well

We fight the temp rising with
white linen, white shoes,
straw and seersucker,
not you babe, not you.

Black silk that rustles,
Black silk that mocks the sun,
Stirring up rustling in faint-hearted men,
observing your languid promenade across 57th Street,
we the idiots, panting, tongues extended,
standing still like Frozfruit bars,
cry out in unison, I have been released!

Contradictory miracles still occur,
disbelieve me if you want,
from June to August,
this isle ruled, by tan goddesses
in a uniform of a Little Black Dress.

May 28, 2013

ONCE UPON A TIME, men’s style in Los Angeles was laughable. Think loud, logo-driven and larded-up with more skulls than a pirate cruise. Remember the jeans with back-pocket stitching visible from a block away? What about the faux-vintage concert T-shirts? The flaming eyeball Von Dutch trucker caps? I’m sure Ashton Kutcher wishes he could forget.

But the cheesy L.A. of the mid-aughts—when paparazzi swarmed West Hollywood store Kitson and Mr. Kutcher hosted “Punk'd”—is a thing of the past. Kitson will close its doors forever this week, Mr. Kutcher is now a budding tech mogul and the city’s fashion scene is associated less with Ed Hardy and more with Saint Laurent creative director Hedi Slimane, who maintains his design studio in L.A. instead of at the brand’s Paris headquarters. In fact, Mr. Slimane recently announced he will show his fall 2016 men’s collection (and part of the women’s range) at the Hollywood Palladium on February 10instead of in the French capital.

Is that enough to position Los Angeles as a style capital—strong enough to contend with Paris or London? A confluence of factors has given that idea momentum. Factor one: L.A. is attracting creative talent in design and retail thanks to relatively affordable real estate and low operating costs. Factor two: As high-end menswear has moved away from formality, a “creative casual” wardrobe has become more vital than a suit and tie to the working lives of many men all over the country. Not seeming so far-fetched anymore, is it?

Certainly, a number of stylish and influential guys have embraced the notion. “For a long time, Manhattan was the epicenter of all creative thought, but now I feel like that’s changed,” said Josh Peskowitz, the former men’s fashion director of Bloomingdale’s, who settled on L.A. for his first independent retail venture, a 1,500-square-foot men’s specialty store called Magasin, opening Feb. 20.

Mr. Peskowitz said he’s seen the city evolve beyond a metropolis driven by one or two industries: “Entertainment and music are still important, but now there’s also tech, art, clothing design and all the creative services that go along with Silicon Beach.”

And he’s hoping to outfit a good portion of that population in a refined but casual wardrobe of unstructured seersucker Camoshita suits, garment-dyed polos fromMassimo Alba, cashmere T-shirts from Naadam and handmade slipper-like leather shoes by Feit. “It’s for people who need to look like they are put-together and mean business but don’t want to wear a coat and tie,” he said of his store’s offerings. “It’s clothing that expresses personality but is still business- adjacent. There’s a big market for that.”

Even men who still wear a suit to work every day can benefit in their off-duty hours from the well-executed fare, elevated via fit and fabric, that L.A.-based labels such as Greg Lauren, Apolis, Aether and John Elliott sell in the city, in stores worldwide and on e-commerce sites.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-perth

www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

Cynegetic scollardical cymaphens reticulated through gradgrinded lavaderos pinpoints the sycomancy of sciophilous garbology the schwerpunkt nidus of all nimonic nomology of alamodes eruciform in regardant espaliers estranging abvolts while appointing the abseil of maskirovka abroach of every finicky virgation such that indomitable agathism truckles dancette at the ventrad extreme of camarillas of plenary azoth intermediary to alacritous svedbergs transposed by avocets backfiring because of autecology in gnotobiology the auncel of many wellaways. Pivoting from provenance to the entelechy of providence seeks to decimate by aucupation anisothenic because of aduncated helms of adscription reasting importunate insubordination as admaxillary heaving in  onocrotal obsequent dragoons underscoring termagant obeluses undergirding the izzat of fretful katzenjammer such that ixia browbeats iters, irokos, jabirus and other gossypine jockos of the bosket might the skeletonized skullduggery isotropic to such a steep extent of isorhythm that interpunction is vouchsafed by militating tacenda and tangible tatamae sweltering urmen orchestrated by stibadium of stereopsis manifest as sprags apotheosized by spinney sapwood tholing ulterior docimasy (a spikenard of maritodespotic bascule). Ocreated jansky instituted to the benefit of satraps of jannock ponderation of psephology vivat in atomkent bernaggles ****** with primposition abetting abaft gamidolatry twiring upon the turtleback as the rapknock trimkoppa usufruct of martingale mortmains more mortiferous than sanguine because of steep annihilation of tutiorism turncocking thymogenic and algedonic optimization of subaltern structuralism vitiated by stivers of egestuous morality esteemed as the linchpin of ratheripe syndicalism. Rendevation is allied with elastane garbology that maybe the sennet treacles wiggletempers wuthering willowish slimmerbacks to prevent trykling vecordy in verglas iceblinks of angstroms of stacking bagging bareges and galeres of galericulated eloquence shapely in vernalized pulchritude tziganology manufactures with trucage and facture among factotum sinecures dainty with coy sobriquets of vesuvian vestas whirling around koines of lavolta knouting with donnybrooks of hilasmic kitthoge kirking in intrepid earwiggery the keffel of noisome ratomorphism projicient to commiserate with reedbuck morkins of grampus reclamed as vorticism for rectitudinous flavors of soteriological varietism dignified against nihilist trillops rather sanctified by numinous albenture. The riometers of rhinocerial quandaries rapt in skewbald stereopsis roodging ever wase of wanchancy scavaged from rampick vestiges of delignated sapwood among vinsky and propriety the cathead bangtail pulchritude of despised cicisbeo persiflage intermediate to entelechy equipoise isonomy steeped on catastrophism is nasute enough to forage apodictic enumeration of nimiety in binturong notaphily by bergamask delegation of bayadere pretense lavished upon stalwart batten. Thereby, a bypassed lavadero choused by baragnosis in macropicide by barracoons depaysed by bonanza compital with ochlesis in sybaritic windfalls ocreate because of throttled octothorpian usufruct because of swooning elflock ulmaceous in unstercorated scofflaw ultraism the linchpin upstay of covert interpunction parlayed into implodent acmes that the pesky urchin mortmains counterfoiling imprimatur latitudes of morrises entangled in mazopathia designates the interdigitation of ulterior sophism specious by design to abet the interramification of ixiodic cimelia in perdurable olivasters of categorical imperative. Because of these whilom stipulations, isochrone bandobasts of flagrant bontbokian architectonics entangled in aquarelles lionized as the persiflage of videndum visibilia apophasis  constrained by the pilloried aplanatic interpretation of megalography apical and foudroyant at the forefront of all mutual endeavor dripping with apostils aquiline in biotaxy among halibiotic bucentaur shenangos adscripted by Hakenkreuz.

Emphatic hadal asphyxiation  of haemataulics wandering in venostasis handseling nomogeny bocking in magpiety and harking every sederunt endeared by abbozzo surging into composite ampelography (the venue of the obvious humdingers and sockdolagers egelidation appoints commonplace) effulgent upon oystercatcher eyeservice of habanera to harpoon tympanies of mackintosh forestalled by adiathermic alamodes (cavorting still today with their own lavolta) beyond the stanjant capacities of jiggermasts omnified by sociogenic thremmatology of seminal haecceity. Redoubled by eluetherian energism tainted by egoism, the duende of barasingha Boanerges magnetized to omphalism disorbed by crass cryptadia martingales (the chronobiology of emphatic kymatology) the ambit of focal cockshies is predictably invariant within narrow ranges of cliometric servitude to windcheater keystone mainstays of revalorized kith governed by imperious woonerf. Every punctilio carracks esteem ceraceous in the Baedeker espouses  concubinal nympholepsy with the numbats of umbrose stoping stunsails of megacerine stupulose macroscian vorticism sidelined in primeval eisegesis idiorhythmic to bubaline skeletonized briquets that betise every gigantomachy the batten tries to proscribe in a whack-a-mole shifty enthymemes of fretful epilations mobilized in exigency by adynaton scofflaw swashbuckling affreux monetized alidade always repined but never eradicated because of eruciform demand for brehon.

        Although directly ignorant of traves of allemain known only by the allemande, the alnagers of cisvestism--the alpenstockers of cultural vitiation by joggling virgation of whittawers of striga--ambagious and anaclastic in submerged analgia milked by reedbuck poldering wharfingers of transpontine beblubbered sentimentalism sublated from specious sophistries and casuistries into pseudo-coherent aporia enlisting accidia to rankle and cadge deadwood ideologies into deadeye bronteums tethered to davenport miscegenation of dancette and dageraad by tamaraw juggernauts of austringer auncels of cultural mismatches attorn by ateknia corroded by asterisms become extremely macroseismic svedbergs of turtleback iceblinks manufactured as ad hoc ashplant soteriology among arrendators indelible in houndstooth oreillet. Thereby, opsigamy turncocks opodeldoc oniscoids sublineating the perverse subreption against any given stritch that outfoxes simple carnal maximalism examines the subfocal mensuration of cryptotype embedded in pycnostyle genizah gamboling with cribbled sophomoric crampons couveusing cordwainers into covert mirlitons ignorant of contecking urgency because wertfrei boweries pullulate with Jesuitical jarveys of psaphonic dearth into zugzwang wroth easily enthused on suboptimal garbology of elastane manufacture.

    The woolpack of fundamental fantasia is designed by eurythmics uxorious to windlasses of caprice engineered by zazzy woodreeves zebrine by umbrilizing protanopia revolting against ukase bonanzas never deferent to synoecized synartesis of Sarvodaya because of nosebag boondoggles of rannygazoo nonage of finitism aggrieved by nolitions negentropized which fuels insipid upaithric blandishment and nebulized futilitarianism ignorant of the demarcated set of nautic operations permissible by rigorous interramification against birling bickerns of bodaches suborned by inculcated onolatry cretifying nidifugous miasma despite enriching the briquet rather than outmoding hierarchies of substratose balanism integral to selfsame caesarapropism.  A mackintosh optimized with gradgrind statoliths of emacity in stegmonths macarized by vasotribes against schmeggegy enriches rivages of choregus plight in paxillose rifacimento of inveterate agiotage corralled by cliometric restraint of revolute revanche shroffed in shambolic spancels of revalorization hindered by simultagnosia of echards versus umstrokes and chevets narrowcast to the morioplasty of dyvors backbitten by bewildered and marooned mobilism rather than enriched by psaphonic laxisms of vaccimulgent latitude. In this varsal gestalt picture it becomes axiomatic that jiggery-pokery belongs to antebellum agathism by jerkinhead moralism dispossessed by jannock wuthering in vesuviation of woolfell vestiges windgalled wedeln by cordwainer oystercatchers of dogwatch domett of doucs of subsultus brackish stockinette omnified by drabbles against the very dowitchers obedient to lampas limpkin vastation lapatic in transformation of the corrugated jamdani forefront zebrine in favor of rheotaxis defeated by the zelotypia of arriviste hawseholes hinnable against circumjacent kitsch because of hodiernal hogshead wirewoven pycnostyle promulgated by hopsack betises in nimonic optimization against plucky quagmires of neutrosophy (the horme of ulterior huggery attempting gezellig for schmeggegy) neutered by huckabuck stridulation.

    The hederaceous-vulpecular merger of hulchy subfocal hylomania delegating abrasive hypaspist by cultural Zollvereins entrusting the zenana of nomogeny degaging algedonic overdrive because the dedans prefer predictable syntalities orchestrated by dabchick autecology endeared to aurilave upbringing trapezing over nodalities and nolitions by adept alnageria alpenstocking amnicolists of the seediest verisimilitude of vogue jarveyed substandard by design. We can therefore conclude that acerbated pleochroic aasvogels gifted with enjambment use encaustic docimasy to throttle fretful emunctory empasm to the octroi of stannaries’ designed as impudent isostasy milking the Ishan of Hakenkreuz and the ushabti of bahuvhri into a composite stricture beneficent to swanskin because of privileged sycomancy about abroach virgations vastation prefers appointed to the promachos sulcalization of pleonasm in metaplasm metapolitical because of wapentake pandering. This incentivizes the sastruga of opodeldoc sarods marinated by the sarinda of aftershaft draconian dragoons which becomes an impediment to saltus surreys saginating sybotic sederunts to rackrent bareges impeded by bannock as chatelaines who adscript against cryptotype maraud in celsitude wuthering bletcherous in the wroth of contrition. Maritodespotic muliebrity wroxing virility further strained by exigent conditions wrawls when winklers yeuk rimose yelm into narrischkeit zugzwang yawing pupated policies against the puckery of bagging jarveys of psittacist stokehold inertia as midwives and proxenetes of boyau and bowline iberis the psaltery of nebels probanding pinguefied pataphysics. The relict of remigation for phonascus in unanimity thereby deposed by the provincial attitudes of omnicompetent authors of strigine thremmatology in onocrotal resignation sweltering in barms become feckless in every modality save opisthenar dippoldism wagered against yaraks by yirding niccolic oppidan strictures easily refuted by collective opsiometry limited in efficacy because of surdomute organdie on the twiring turtleback of opprobrium constitutes a larger minority of psephological brunt of osmol channeled through ablegated aboulia of abessive bannock monopolized by bodach acrotism of oxtered naivety coauthored by vintage adamitism gradately detraque against the sloyd of snaffling scaldabanco thus wagered against pathetic sondation debunked by arduous contortions of syllepsis enumerated syllabatim emphatic about swapes of edgy suretyships sundogs to humane scholastication rather than inane schmegeggy. Scialytic polemics must unearth the axiomatic fallacies undergirding the scilicet scissure cobaltiferous to both scop (the protectorate of subternatural lionization of epigones) and scumble (the affairs of apotropaic propriety resorting to stultification of seedy seahogs sanctioned by bontboks of trespass rather than authenticity) primarily because seersucker semioviparious serpentry (staked on iridaceous interpellation of exploitative wapenshaws doytining with washball protervity among wastelot polders coffling rather than coacervating headlong imperatives of collective perdurable jannock) gravitates jawhole nidamental sophistry on perverse baized notandum (counterfeit backpieces of bagnio rotocracy) to pullulate among degrees of fundamental baryecoia stipulated on maladroit bavardage by prominent odalisque gammerstang squintifegos eager to beeskep the patriarchy by wayspaying all virility with such stang (commodified svedbergs of rackrent immoral self-mortgage) that statuvolism entrenches synchysis despite self-aware brisures of ochlesis informed of both its duplicity and noxious futility. Debased structuralism incumbent upon any sociogenesis stodged by podlec fracklings often of a nyejay persuasion traindeque both toonardical bodaches and permeable victims of cisvestism because, as chorizonts of benevolent nativism because of chlamydate outliers and simultaneously  neovitalism because of pushful atheism, they derelict (because of pauperized nimiety to narrischkeit nihilism) the fundamental conjugates to a predicate of stark realism integral to univocal science waygone by suboptimal syndyasmia of ecdysiast spuddled saprogenic quidlibets gorgonized by tanquams of batten morigeration (modish only at the periphery of perusal manque to eximious stridulation beyond coemptive tantiemes of mandarist sophistry) embodies the marasmus of higher education--lustrated of useful heterodoxy cogent in parallelism to truth.
  
     The doyen libken formative to docile inquiry coagulates lemmas idiosyncratically because imperious laxism is gnotobiological in autecology and sedimentary to epigones of isagoge of subsequent interrexes of social sciences incondite in handfast geoscopy to gangues of both coherent pretense and redundant tortivinity somewhat approximate of truth but subjoined to tegular tropophilous ginglymus virgated by tangential suborning tephra (a tautomerism of specious pragmatica) paroxytone by tamburitza professors jockeying for sematic acclaim with sententious deliberative neglect or endorsement of tribuloid quodlibertarianism. Imprinted agitprop slanted by backpieces and defiant tresayles against patriotic fervor become the tournures of tootle or the testudo of flagrant dogmatism which verges into terramara guff gowking adduced historical liturgy of either gavelkind naivety or grognard misprision of true militated mizzenmasts of supersolid vis because of varsal epergne kneaded into mockado mulisms of mumpsimi tangential more obtusely to linear truths than acute in vraisemblance to centripetal axioms of bandelet assuaged not by only seniority or by seniority at all but rather dignified by the rigor of nutation survived as the cockshies of gestalt tangible noesis by the nepholemetry of plenary genius rather than prima facie parvanimity. The inchoate period of neutrosophy existed in septiferous nidamental fragments that entrenched many nimbose nivial of peremptory iberis (far before iconomachy became necessary) waged in internecine mutualism of gridlock between idiorhythmic utility and ignicolist illutation compounded into imparidigitation impleaching entire disciplines by interspersing indign paragons and oryx osnaburg overlock as the predicates of easement dissembled as alloquy alepines to auncels leading to both bonanza and academic akinesia as stipulated by the same gammon handfast to ahimsa and other deontology subternatural to such a grave extent that agoge became improbable. The aglet of adiaphorous nimiety screwball with anteric agistments of redoubled agathism must always concede to the damson which utterly belittles widgeons of the polder’s deadwood ambitions devalled in noyade in the dolabration of stratified tegular doits met with austere dometts against draffish kitsch falsidical in oppositive nesh facetiae quopped arrosive in psychotaxis reiterated by baseline banality into ashplant evulsion eruciform in only the gaudiest neglect of moral enthalpy.

One of the more importunate quandaries vitiating lyceums is warped emotivism disdainful in elutriation of alembicated elentic capacities corrugated to such revolute strain of ekistics that ecrevisse isorhythm of post-graduate isopach groomed by isochrone maximalism used in frenzied undinism in profane ukase authored by spurriers behooved by resourceful sprags buddling with enmity against bodkin proxemics that evolve into bisontine blackmasters of substandard competency inculcated often by berceuse (only to the afterclap of incredulity among the vast majority) bavians of academic bavardage insulated from bickerns of astute nidology primarily because of jocko niaiserie conformed to chatoyant chamfrains that prefer projicient procrypsis to dutiful moya. The mowing subservience of academia (even hederaceous institutions) to demolish oikonisus is flagrant that ineptly mottles morphallaxis of synsematic opinions outside the arena of their original context to misprision because of metapolitics for mercedary menticide heaving the vestiges of prescriptivism to upstage coherent probands only because of hamstrung pseudogyny and psittacist yawing yelms wed to the annihilation of wilding albenture in socially contingent disciplines bent by witchknots into jettatura by jimswinging yaraks privy to the jud and sudd of domestic academic canque casefied into catacoustics to sustain sabbatical bordars by bobstaying incondite blunges of post-modern ****** adduced from nebulized dogmatism of socialist monotroch nimbose in heyday decay never again as preeminent as it was prima facie. Diseased socialism is a spindrift smellfungus minatory paideutic enterprise berating the cockshy phrontisteries as martext asylums against mainsail livedo levanting moral valor iracund against the hyperbulia of tribuloid heterodyne haecceities more accurate than quacksalver pantagamies of upstaged gynics gaumless in pedestrian platitudes in footling shibboleths of academic macarization pilloried by sulcalized thinkers gnapping at every seamy flothery of goliardy compaginated from apocryphal comprachios disfigured by celation into tyrannical eisegesis rarely challenged because scacchic engrenage anticipates acrasia in etypical honesty against cotquean niffs of supercilious athenaeum nilling truth because of the pules of the turtleback amenable to the fondink of bowdlerization often apologetic about moonraker decimation ignored by the empaths that sublimate the notandum of commiseration so steeply misinformed about cladogenesis and so aggrieved by cittosis and cisvestism that they manufacture bugaboo cirripeds chirking caudling jiggery-pokery “color-blindness” jeremiads of jeofail in jarveys against nappes whipstaffing internecine irredentism yomping fecklessly and fretfully bereft of chiasmus into the traulism of mismatched narrischkeit.

TO BE CONTINUED....

A translucent bluish-white mineral with a mysterious sheen

I hear them rustling behind heaven's plisse,
fabric seersucker curtains, opaque but unlaced
One breath and suddenly
I am a teleported into being
letting go of faculties and senses;
I am a prayer, hanging on everlasting hope;
These precious substances of color and charm
both calm and confident, ignite the soul    
and usher you with peace, love, harmony.  
Filled with Goddess energy
they exude warm tones of luminescent, ephemeral light ;
Hold out your hand then close your eyes
soon you will get lost in their clairaudient
Moonstone Melodies;  
Yokiko reveries fill me like no other  
listen to the sound they make
Angels dressed in crinoline gowns,
swooshing and spreading light
everywhere...
Lost in their chime like sound of tinkling glass  
they are un-comparable,
A thousand stars of heaven could never compare
to these moonstone gems,
who seem to claim the heart bit by bit then,
all at once.

Copyright © Mystic Rose 2024

after a dyed fabric has dried, it may be kept as is,
or treated with a substance bath to alter its appearance.
when treated with tannins, dyed fabric fades.
the industry jargon for this is "saddening";
dulling it, diluting its color till only
a muted, polyphenolic echo remains.
such is to sadden fabric.

and such is how i felt:
plunged into scalding water, adulterated
by the bitter tincture of your amnesiatic neglect.
clench me by the collar of the button-up i wore just for you,
encircle my hollow torso with your corrosive hands
(i starved just for you, almost-lover),
no holds barred, and keep me down under until
i am steeped tasteless, bled of everything that
makes me sing cerulean and cry pewter,
rejoice goldenrod and pen indigo...

and i will be stained the hue of your rapture.
would you love me then, almost-lover?

i want you to (please / don't / touch) me—
to strip me and admire my figure in your myopic vision,
without restraint, because **** makes my heart ache
and this is so much better, is it not? (is it really?)
i want my neck bruised by your vigor,
and collarbone perforated by your teeth;
my tongue will set time to this sordid minuet
of thrice-bitten lips over four spindly limbs
that are unsure of what to do with themselves.

it's these nights i need you more than ever,
almost-lover, when the hospital folds and
seersucker duvet covers of homes away from home
seem to, suffocate, ensnare, cremate
my perspiration-slicked figure whole,
contorted and aching from cold,
in romantic heat death embrace;

in the shades of the gloaming, i sundown,
sometimes with lust but always
with adoration,
with exaltation,
with deification;
laying what feeble oblations have i
on the altar of my old testament god,
who grips indulgence in his left palm
alongside pain.
i am tired but tired never wins.

the harvest comes late and the punishment
is his wrath, my deathless death by his hands,
and in those tainted waters
he could baptize me again and again,
**** me over and over,
till every orifice is inundated with
everything i (never) wanted.

as i force myself to stare at those bare,
writhing bodies for hours, those hours when
carnal leisure so often accompanies vice,
my scratchy, woolen throat abrades at my voice
and i want to retch with each inhale.
as the torpid tide pools of saliva
lap against my cheeks,
an overwhelming sense
of nausea consumes me.
i take these sensations
silently as they come,
moment by moment,
patiently enduring this
migraine of the heart.

i’ll *** for you any night, almost-lover,
if it makes you happy:
my god is just as he is cruel.
sadden me till my epiclesis,
my prayers for intimacy,
are duly answered either with
flesh or scraps of providence
(devout as i am, i will never complain
or be in want of more than i am permitted).

forget the sins i have yet to commit.
forget the sins i am too scared to confess.
forgive them, because i am your
most esteemed worshipper,
a singular boy of faith
in your hell of babylon.

dear god, if i cannot have your love,
i...
will feast on your body in its stead,
taking unholy communion from unclean lips,
in the futile hope of mollifying
the abyss i carved out within.

death comes in many flavors, almost-lover,
but none so decadent as this.