His cruel crystal eyes pierce beneath my skin.
The rancor of him perfumes the haze I’m in—
Fueling the unconscious pleasure mixed with raw disgust
Into dreaded panic ecstasy, our wedded flesh is thrust.

Give him one last look before he turns aside
Linger on the tender parts, let fantasies collide.
Twist to mold tightly to hips— accept his cruel disease
Sweet as nectar, thick as tar. A child we must weave.

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Five syllables twirl
round the tip of my tongue
caressing the damp bone
rough of my mouth--
a cherry chest within which
the vowels and consonants
reverberate. Reticent to speak,
to open and release unto the
air, gentle trills and sighs
comprising the name
known only to myself,
the chest remains securely locked.

Two rows of ice cream snuggled in the case
behind a pane of frosted glass.
Choosing the first one I would taste
revealed itself to be a monumental task.

With apprehension on my face I asked,
“May I please try the flavor of the day,
as well as pecan and chocolate cake?”
The clerk seemed not to have heard.

Too timid to repeat my mumbled words,
I closed my eyes and pointed randomly.
“A single scoop of that should be alright
in a sugar cone with extra sprinkles, please.”

It is necessary to clarify that within The Symposium, Eros is not simply a carnal, bodily pleasure— in fact, Pausanias advocates that this type of love, where a only fleeting desire is being pursued (and yes, he is speaking of between an older and younger man, which can be spoken of at another time) these relationships should be banned. Only ones searching for LIFE LONG COMMITMENT and LEARNING FROM ONE ANOTHER (particularly the younger from the older) should be permissible.

If I claim that Eros has largely fled this world, what then has taken his place? A blood letting. An outpouring of emotion onto one another. But no capacity to receive it. A display. A purge. A rivalry of who can put on the best emotional show for our betters. Who can wear the most pain.

But few know how to share in it. Few know how to connect. Few know how to worship Eros and find their other half as in the tale of the three genders that Aristophanes presents. He says that the only way for us to find happiness and healing will be to worship Eros, to worship Love, this higher form of love which goes beyond sexual desire, which goes beyond just spending the evenings together, and Eros will lead humanity closer to unity. We drift further apart each day and are dangerously close to becoming “split apart again like statues in relief” the more choices we make to indulge in ourselves, instead of in Love which is always pointed toward a unity with other people.

Poem text.

Open up a vein
Let the blood flow free
Goosebumps on your flesh
From a touch of the breeze
Wounds you’ve yet laid bare
Expose them to the light
Breathe in through your scars
Swallow the night sky

Sacrifice
unto the gods
your dignity, your pride,

Sacrifice
your living blood,
your purpose,
and your tribe.

Pull and stretch and rip your flesh
Higher burst the flames!
Run wild!
‘Round the flickering base
As the blood
runs
down
your
face.

Feeling my tongue stick in my chest—
“Your desire is too high a request.”
The eyes I trust piercing my soul:
Rending my heart, losing control

What could decrease this misunderstanding?
My sorrow must cease, before demanding:
How could the meaning of my affection
turn fiercely against such noble intentions?

Why abandon patience upon my forswearing
I’d give them the world; my touch, tender and caring,
Attend every need without further complaint
Say solemn oaths, be forever a saint?

Now an arbiter must intercede
Undo the harm caused by my need—
What’s left to broker the love in my chest?
Fearful truthfulness made way for distress.

Surrendered to his arms my soul will be
Escaped from flesh’s cruel fragility.
All pain and torture hurriedly shall cease;
Within his heart, I find my sweet release.
Perchance, I start to doubt his constant love—
Soothing words attend my carnal need.
For goodness, the nature which is his,
Stays steadfast in my storms and volatility.

Poem text.

The signposts were there—
Keep out. The waters are deep, the current
Is swift and the waves are rough—
But I wanted to drown.

Your cries came from the rocks.
Beautiful, shrill, distorted, and lonely.
Pulling me closer
But trying to warn me.

My heart loves the sea.
When I saw you there trapped in its currents,
Consumed by its wrath—
My heart started yearning.
For here was a person who felt the shore’s rhythm—
Watched as the moon commanded the tide,
Been so enamored he’d ended up stranded,
Moored on that rock,
Which my heart’d come to find.

I should have listened—
The cries from the rock to the shore
Told me a tale I chose to ignore.
The vast ocean has caught many a soul:
He was merely a ghost
Long marooned from his goal.

“Don’t waste your time here.
You will only remain
Stuck in my same position
Filled with regret, loneliness, and shame.
The waves are too strong,
And the current too fierce,
To let me return to life on the shore.
Here I’m left with my grief and nothing more.

To bring you aboard
Of my rock of regret
Would be only to hurt you,
So that I could forget
All the terrible pain that I’ve known,
And I’ve nursed
In this ocean of memories,
On this rock made of hurt.”

I chose not to listen.
To sit and to stay,
To watch from the shore surely,
Was not a crime with heavy punishment to pay?
Content to watch the tides roar,
Just shout from the shore,
Arranging to keep my heart safe and secure.

Alas, Neptune’s tide will not be controlled.
The sands started shifting,
The waves loosed my hold—

Tumbling, twisting into the depths of the sea,
My eyes caught one final glimmer
Of my Ghost Majesty.

Nowhere else I can be
but where this car is taking me.
Highway passes by my side,
while I’m cocooned safely inside.

Limited choices, without expectation,
no one asking for veneration.
A road with one clear destination:
I can forget about SALVATION.

Silence all! Except the wind.
No more thoughts come crowding in.
Closing my eyes, this world disperse—
Nothing to fear within my hearse.

Poem text.

Happiness is measured on a sliding rule
slightly different in each heart that hungers
Some are cracked, containing mismatched numbers
unsatisfied by mundane desires
requiring acts of deprivation most cruel

By other measures, this joy is found illicit.
These hearts, which appreciate the explicit
tingling sensation of disapproval
weighing down from upright scales
Moan sweetly in their soul
when it’s pronounced they aren’t quite whole.
Thinking if this is where their happiness is found
they’d quite prefer to be unsound.

Wagging mouths beware my ire
born from generations’ pure blood.
Report back to their sire my dealings
of recklessness, should you desire
to plunge me deeper in the mire.

Release me from their conversation,
for I’ll not stay past twelve o’clock
to hear them rake me through the muck
with smiles dancing round the room
Announcing I’ll not soon find a groom.

Beasts, pick up their naughty notions,
(they thought to tear me limb from limb)
spit them back upon their shaking heads
never guessing their misfortune
came from toiling in distortion.

A final spell, I’ll weave it quick,
without panache or devilry.
Wickedness is not my chosen vice
nor careless gossip, foolish revelry.

In their laughter slick with wine,
a truth most painful lies
stripping me of vanity,
removing my disguise:

a woman stands here still
beneath what they call “witch,”
a title females must dispel
before hurtling down to hell—
so look into my face and see
the bitch they made of me.

My body would then either go into cardiac arrest or achingly begin to build a new soul. Excruciatingly, ounce by ounce. Until almost the final drop of life force if necessary. Destroying my flesh, the thing men desire above all, to fuel the fires of the Phoenix soul.

A more primal version would arise. A young scrawny thing that has lost her societal refinements— her outer garments that made her a commodity of the male gaze. Tougher. Truer. Honest to her instincts. Intent on her desires and the primordial purpose of her sex. Free to pursue what makes her heart beat, howl at the moon, delight in the wind tingling over her. All skin and bone.

The danger is in allowing the elements to soften those edges . Turn the angles to curves. Accepting the wind, the current of the stream, weathering and shaping the form. Nature may be a mother, but it is a mother chained and co-opted by men, serving them unwittingly at the worst of times, and forcibly at the best.

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Give me lollipops and cherries
Letters stained sickly sweet
At twenty-three it’s not quite naughty
To be an adult’s favorite treat

You swear it’s legal, even natural
to love a girl so young
with your erectile dysfunction
this couldn’t be for fun.

You picture me with short cropped hair
the fringe framing weeping eyes,
my waistline shrinking, barely there,
between my legs a gooey prize.

I’m the only one, you swear,
to understand your heart.
The others only saw you as
a creepy, strange, old fart.

Writing this poem, I still haven’t figured it out. Did I just write another apology? Did I pat myself on the back, assuage my despair? Am I Rob in a female body? God, I hope not, because I’m still convinced that Laura shouldn’t have given him another chance.

Imagine this as a long voicemail.

Poem text.

i can’t afford to apologize again
for the things i did but didn’t
understand,
especially
as you are standing there
dumbfounded, disagreeing
with my explanations.
when was the last time
you looked at yourself and thought,
“I contributed to the situation too,”
then genuinely formulated an answer
for how we got to this point?
you’ve come up with something, sometime
that doesn’t exist inside my mind,
so I have to question myself again,
over and over and over and over and—
was that how it happened?
was I the one that fucked up then?
if you reply “yes” i think i’ll scream
because all i feel is heartbreak
and i can’t be the one
that did it to myself.

Poem text.

Kintsugi could not fix this brittle form.
I lost the broken pieces long ago,
and I’ve no gold with which to mend my skin,
no silver rare, nor copper red, to seal my scars.

Poem text.

Socks and underwear, my sweet, is what I want for Christmas
They would make the perfect treat. I’d eat them up for breakfast
This sample of your scent, my pet, is all that I desire
I wish that you would please relent and fuel my burning fire