on a bad Friday, i head towards La Quinta

i keep trying to find someone

i'm billed for two hours

i'm trying to

meet the man who's more than man

more than me, im here

i'm rubbing lube

scuffing scratches into cotton bedsheets

my mouth is tired

scratches in my back, and

oil

there's grease in his elbows

and his shoulders

and in me

my mouth is left with an aftertaste

he kisses me in places he won't let me touch

and bends me into myself

he forces my hands

he forces his fist

into a developing rose

a flower past its prime, fatigue sets in

my mouth is a portal out of which a sword and the truth glide out.

noise cuts the silence

i have harsh marks where my neck should be

my head splits, my body is sensitive

i have itches in my wrist, on the tops of my feet

calluses in my jaw

he's a god when he's like this

let my guts constrict and

pour from unresolved portals

in and out, front to back,

let them take my word and my legs

let them speak for me, Friday

you'll get money in your hands

in my hands, there's good religion

serve, serve it forward, serve

don't blink, or you'll miss

the sun, the candle snuffed by

body heat and bad porn

two bodies intertwined

on the wick, on the vine, noose

the lights turn off, they turn back on

i wish i could take it all back

i don't have sex anymore, just this lifeless thing

of moving around

and seething and foaming at the mouth

in crowded places, squeezed flesh

a mob of desire at the party

i remember when sex was life

they don't talk about the habituation of stimulation

the heat death in touch, entropy

on the worst days, i'm lit in a dark room like this

but most days its

sitting around hoping not to be looked at

hiding out in a sexless room; a church,

a confessional, a calm sea, a burnt match,

sitting alone

lonely beggar, wood pew

saying all the things i can't say out loud

in subtle murmurs, with closed eyes

bright light seeps through stained window

i just want to feel normal again

i want to be human again, with my skin back

i remember when sex was love

and being held, so i could warm up after shivering from the bare

and when it was leaving the lights on to stay the night in lit

rooms, you can see my mouth to kiss

and my hands to intertwine, my fingers

and my thumbs, and my toes

my eyes to look inside of – to know

i remember when sex was everything and nothing

when it was one thing, an important thing

a thing in the back of your mind, yet to experience

yet to have, having it was everything

the thrill of being untouched, to be touched once

to shimmer like gold

oh my god, i'm so scared

i feel now like pig flesh and rot,

and when i stare at this face real close

i don't recognize him

his nose and his mouth mesh together

and his eyebrows extend towards his ears

i don't recognize the pinpricks trickling

in the places he presses his mouth

where his fingernail-teeth scrape my ribs

i'm back in the crowds of figures and things

i'm a child, creating and forgetting

i'm a dancer, about to slip the rope

i don't know what he is

there's only dark now, with the lights off

i want to leave the party, drive home

and sit near the running water alone

leave the party and find

someone, something else to believe in

besides the monotony of a day to day

where the world kept spinning, it took me with it

back to where there's music and lights engulfing the sea, to find

a mind beyond a body, this earth

i'm done