Pornstar

Location

 

Her voice becomes unclear.

Are these expressions of pleasure

Or pain? She winces and looks for something to hold on to,

Something to brace the defilement between her thighs,

The gaping wet wound,

But no one will end it,

Not even herself, because her Self—

her Ghost, her Atman, her Breath—

I’m over here, handcuffed to a rail,

Waiting.

 

My Flesh is an abused coffee machine in an office, used

To their delight, to bring their caffeine—their fix. Fill up

and go, but know the effects of yellow stains on bones

that used to be pure white. The addicts drink it black,

Speaking with the most fowl breath, 

Guzzling two cups, four cups, eight cups a day.

They fill up and go and always

Come back.

 

No matter what they see, this is what they see.

My Flesh, a glowing white unicorn—docile, mild, meek—

Airbrushed to perfection, suspended in their dreams;

The glitter shimmers in those fantasies,

And cocks stir to firm formation

While Washington Monuments erect like ripple effects.

But the gaping wound, it persists

When they all wake up, when that black mesh veil of arousal

Dissolves.

 

And finally, I’ll say, “Let us go then, you and I,”

And Flesh will cry, but she’s locked the script in her mind

That Daddy gave us years ago.

She never misses a line; she knows she was born to play this role.

And the camera will keep rolling, and rolling,

Rolling a wire that keeps the bird caged,

Rolling a whip, an open wound on my back.  

 

But Flesh trimmed the hides to plait the black snake of the whip;

And she allows the placement on my head a crown of thorns.

My life will escape me, and she will remain here

A hollow log on a stagnant river, bereft of a soul. 

I will reach the hill,

And the clock will strike three. 

Maybe someday I’ll return with holes in my hands.

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