i surrender. surrounded by you
and no escape, i capitulate to your demands
and sign the treaty that makes me the slave nation.

now ravaged and plundered, i renege, withdraw,
a hunger strike. nothing will pass these lips.
i have no tongue. you can trap my body,
but my spirit will always be free.
a noble claim, but you continue on regardless,
in chains i am your’s to do what with and
my speech just makes you smile as
you continue to move above me
with an urgency that rises like a wave.

white wine on your breath is highschool
and parties and crowded kitchens drinking
and cigarettes and desire firing
and finding first time a profound need
in the smokey, alcoholic warmth of their mouth
that is more than the practised mechanics
of jaws and lips and tongues,
that is an aching threshold of hand-me-down feelings
finally and suddenly fitting in the quiet backyard winter air
and how sharp and bright the night becomes
in the moment you separate from everything
in the dizzy flare of adolescence passing
before friends drag you back into their warm noisy light.

you - walking,
passing on the same street
several times a week,
walking on the same pavement
sharing this narrow strip of the city with me
then disappearing.

me - also walking,
sometimes sitting,
wondering how in this little ghetto
you can fade in and out,
visible only on this block of this street,
never to be seen elsewhere.
not in the shops or the cafes or the pubs,
not on other streets or at parties or restaurants.
there are people i will know all my life,
but you, it seems, i will only see
on this stretch of this little street
and no words will pass between us.

you are so caught, candy
unwrapped and rolling,
curling, smiling coarsely
in vulgar poses, sticky
fingers grabbing.

another gutter life
in candy trappings
blinds down music up
hiding a wicked freedom
of wrong acts
you can’t resist and require
a witness, a participant,
observation, participation
in your unwholesome satiation.