Dinner with a Friend
You see her and your fingers weep
The itch
The extremities
Tips of them
Soft pads
Plush nailbeds
Silicon encased in velvet
They curl and tremble.
You want to put them to use
Finger-paint something exquisite
Something new
Like you and her
Your life gathers within
Exults and pleads for a way out
You want to write and storm a song
Perform it to a multitude so it means something
You want to sketch the portrait of your love's likeness
In charcoal and blood
So she, your love, can see how exquisite and dangerous and alive she is
To you
Your hands hold
Threads and traces of who you will be
Dead spiders never left behind
Such a potent craft or pattern
As your destiny imprinted
Etched and carved
Through the hollow of your palm
Which is the part of you that touches her first
The blood beating at your wrist as you
Summon the courage to give her
the bounty of your potential,
All that gathered love
That is going to shock the wind out of her beautiful lungs.
The blood beats even faster when
She says no
No, you think, don't look at me like that
Don't sour and soil this
I am not--
You do not
Know
And the blood beats crazed
When you push
The hollow
Marked
Liar
Lines that live
In the hollows of your palms
Into the sweet bones at her throat
Find that pitiful pleading
Vulnerability where her life screams and rages
No
The blood, yours, runs empty from loss
When you push yourself into her other hollows
Violations
Yours too, not just hers
You imagine love
You imagine her pleasure
As you push and invade
It cannot be real now
Everything
Forsaken
In that moment she saw
A monster in your eyes
You were not
All you wanted
Was to see her joy
As you imagined
And gave
Already
In your mind before
This happened
In you mind she arched up
And smiled when she saw your clean need
To love her
And how--
And how--
And how--
But she instead
Saw some kind of monster
She said no
And you had to show her
What she could be in your capable hands
But instead you have showed both of
you
A monster
You cry into her hair after
Say sorrysorrysorry
Cry into your hands when her hair is drenched
But she is a shivering pale fire
An entirely separate thing
That refuses to light you up
Burn you clean
Incinerate blame.