screaming out your name.

Sometimes, while reading a book, there's a sentence or paragraph that stands up and punches you in the gut. Sometimes, it perfectly encompasses so much of what you want to say to a certain person, or is able to describe what you are feeling or have felt, even more so than you ever could.

I give to you a piece of Craig Clevenger's "Dermaphoria."

"Somewhere there's a part of me that knows right from wrong. That part of me, lying gagged and bound in my mental basement, still has enough breath to whisper out through a spit-soaked gag that I should be protecting you, that if I fail every test of decency known to man, the fallout shouldn't come to you, that you had nothing to do with any of it. If I'm half a man, I should make certain you never know otherwise. I wanted to protect you, and if that made you angry with me, if it meant your never knowing why, then so be it."

This isn't an excuse, just an explanation.

the fearing.

the image is relentlessly flickering
her flesh, whiter than a ghost's bones, tangled in mine under fabric like armor against air conditioning
soft and sweet as marshmallow
free of clothing and fear
you, I felt your heartbeat once again and almost cried
and I showed you; I shed my old skin
you showed me you were open and I've never seen you smile so big
this was an emergency transfusion, a successful operation, we'd like to thank the surgeons involved, that sort of thing
fuck our volume
bathed in the silence afterwards
and yet now the image cuts in and out
should've taken a photograph so I can convince myself it happened
He needs to teach me to be patient, satiated, secure
(I'll sever my antennae)
I lost the trail back to my daily visual nightmares of what could be
or at least I hope that I did
stop the fearing