An Homage to Failure

Sex with failure makes for good juxtaposition.

You grab me with your black cloak,
cinderblock black—a tarnished grey—
and, pinning me, you show me both your faces:
the white and the dark
that simmer into your cloak, iridescent.

Sex with you is what keeps me
tangled on rusted tenterhooks,
mingling with dark lace that seduces:
that alloy that rips on my insides,
it’s made of joy and ache.

With every slur you mouth against my flesh,
my valleys turn to peaks only to rest again.
My skin lies distended at every open of your palm—
strikes for every notion of your leaving this marked place.
Irresolute, I climb into the nest below your neck,

and my whispered voice is phantom:
“The best I ever had.”

Author's Note

This isn't entirely the best--nor the most conventional take on things either. I just started the first few lines and decided to go through with it. Anyway, another one for the back of the anthology.

This was written at about 5 in the morning, so if some parts seem weird, I was probably weird at this time.

Reviews

[Antonionioni]

I enjoyed reading it, Lorelei. It is unusual but that's okay, it's more original because of that.