Cocaine Skyline

He hurls the motorbike into the sharp highway corner, skipping gears as he leans the bike to the side. His knee almost grazes the pavement. The speed whipping his long hair back behind his ears. The wind drying the tears from his eyes. He's not running from anything. He's not running.

He's not running from his pretty rich boyfriend on the other side of town. That perfectly angler face and full lips. The way that pretty boyfriend slips naked into bed and then into him. He's not running from that pile of cocaine sitting on a mirror on the coffee table or the insessant ringing of his cell phone. Rich junkies are just as shady as poor ones.

He's not running from that professor he's having an affair with when her husband is out of town. So much older than him, but beautiful in her experiences. She talks about philosphy and poetry over breakfast. He sits fascinated but soon enough is weaving through the heavy traffic back to that those moutians of cocaine and his soft lips.

He's not running from that innocent girl in his calculus class that keeps batting her eyelashes at him. He wants to taste that virginity dripping down on his tongue. Finds himself staring at her, imagining what she would look like with her knees in the air. That school girl look crumpling into sheer hunger. He shakes his head and is running agian.

He's not running from all that Catholic guilt his mother bestowed upon him. The guilt that eats at him like the cocaine eats at the membranes in his sinuses. The guilt for every moment of sexual bliss. Every moment of druggy release tearing through his veins. The guilt pushes the bike faster. The yellow lines become a blur as they rush by. Faces in passing cars become streaks of light and flashes of teeth. The skyline darkens; the night takes on a blue hue. The guilt takes flight as he goes faster still and all the weight lifts up to that dark heaven.

He's not running. He's just trying to find the fastest way to his own destruction.

The Holy Wasted

I would stand at the cabin door watching the sun rise over the valley mountians. The tall golden grass stretching up the feilds to the tree line. There was coffee on the stove. Crickets jumping in the creeping sun, singing their 'come fuck me' song. The drowzy bees tumbling into the morning glories shading the windows. A fawn dog at my feet listening for approaching footsteps or rumbling motors. The creek rushed by with a constant white noise; the new sun filtering through the overhanging canopy of leaves to dapple down to the smooth peebles and darting fish.

I'm not there anymore. I'm here in this city and you are out there somewhere doing your best to ignore me. I see the night now like ink instead of pierced with a million trillion stars. It has its own wildness here. Bums in the alley, wild cats under the deck, broken bottles sparkling in the street lights. I feel you out there. Just tell me what you are thinking. I can feel it anyways but I need to know what it is.

Sometimes all this humanity is a little too much for me. All those emotions and thoughts beating against my brain. Sometimes I feel like a beetle trapped under the glass. I just want to go back. Maybe I stay here for you. Maybe you could come with me. See the reality of those places. Understand what made me this way. If you would just ask. Ask me where I came from. Ask who shaped me. Ask what they did to me. How I got here all those years ago. I want you to know but I feel like I talk too much when I get around you and you wish I would just shut up for a second. I have all these stories and no one to tell them to.

Wasting

Everything decays, baby. We're just fucking our way to it for something to do in the meantime. 

Lumpish

I wish I was dead.

...
Wait...

I'm probably just being overly dramatic.

My muscles aren't fitting right. The government is taking all my money. My lover doesn't love me. I don't have no booze in the kitchen and I can't even get drunk. I smoked all my drugs up. These pills the doctor gave me to pull it off don't do nothing fun. The phone refuses to ring. My teeth are clenching and won't stop. There's a dead horse in the ditch outside. A hooker stole my shoes. The junky down the street keeps singing off key and I forgot the words to those hangman hymns. The dentist called me all angry that I hadn't paid my bills. I'll owe student loans still in my grave. They will be taxing my headstone. I've got my soul on the lay-away plan so I'm having trouble feeling anything clearly. That tree I planted last year in the yard sprouted up a thorny bush. The fucking condos are creeping up the street and blocking out the sun. My love letters get returned unopened and with postage due. I've been hanging out with the ghosts downstairs too much but they have better cookies than I do.  I have a gun but it only shoots water. I can't afford the bullets.

...
Wait...

Maybe I do wish I was dead.

The Fighter's Reach

A spider-like hop. A lunging forward with a speed and violence I know you store up in your muscles with each movement. Breath coming quick. Fist flying forward reaching for a target. I see each muscle slide on your torso, down your arms, flexing in your powerful legs. The tension coiled like a spring, flung forward at an invisible enemy. Snap! and you are back in a flash.

I let my breath out slowly. My cells grow flushed and swell.

You don't realize it but your muscles flex in the same way, with the same speed and violence, when you are above me. Sliding in and out at a rapid shuddering pace. I have to catch my breath then as well. Awed at the beauty of your hardness and my softness meeting in a sweaty dance on the sheets. I am not blind to the juxtaposition.

In that moment, sex and violence shimmer as one beautiful star burning in a dead universe. We are that center of everything and close our eyes against the dying of the light.

Seeking the Skin

It feels like my nerve endings are dancing on fire. It rages out of control around the edges of my skin. It tingles, it pricks, it seers. I convulse involuntary like a marionette with the strings cut.

These days drain me down. It's like someone plucked my batteries out and I'm slowly coming to a stop. Like molasses on a cold day. Underwater and trying to run. The inertia stealing the strength from my limbs until I collapse in a heap.

I reach out in need of you and find you at the door. Running your hands over my legs makes the nerves finally settle and sleep. They have been creating a storm for days. I haven't lived without pain for decades. Living is pain. But you hands moving ever so gently lull me back into my skin which I have been trying to escape from all week. Your fingers tracing the edges of my face give me what I need to make it through the night.

I would tell you that I love you, but I don't want you to leave. Your hand on my hip as you gently breathe beside me all night keeps me here for one more day. I might not be enough, and I might be damaged beyond repair, but tonight with your hand in mine I feel like I've finally come home.