Animal

Photo by Donnie Ray Crisp on Unsplash

In the half darkness

I sleep naked,

your body

wrapped around my body

like a fisherman’s net.

–

We fill up

the whole bed

with our animal heat

but there is too much

punctuation between us

to ever find that familar

animal rhythm.

–

I close my eyes

when you masturbate

because I usually can’t shake

the humiliation of never

being chosen.

–

The room

smells

as if it were

an extension of us

and most nights

you press your face

into my hair and breathe

in my scent

as if it were a drug.

You seem to love me

but not in all the ways

I want to be loved.

–

I miss you,

not because you are

absent

but because

you are not all there

you are not

in everything

you are half-way.

–

Some nights

I am so there

that I can feel myself

merging with your pulse

and the shadows

which crawl from one corner

of the room to the other.

In that sinister state

of primal alertness

I want things

to happen to my body.

–

So I sleep

and I dream about you

and for a little while

it doesn’t make any difference

that it’s just my imagination.

–

I don’t want

to stand still

forever

I need to be seen,

known, experienced

in order to feel

that I am alive.

–

Love is not a game

of paper, rock, scissors.

Whereby I am always paper

and you are either

abusing or abused.

It’s about communion

and there is absolutely nothing

unholy about sex.