bruised by kisses

Bruised by kisses viewed with glum distrust,

leaving marks of well intended softness

upon selfish and rejecting lips. Slow breath,

hot sweat. Warm thighs stroked by 

rising skirts keen stoked with blithe ferocity.

Sex is just a function who forgot me 

into new year’s. Some lad’s gendered lust 

not mindful of that gap: my masochistic ache 

for proximity and taste, 

to fill that space between

you and my take on what this is or isn’t. 

It’s him. Or it’s that other one. Whose careless 

wander into maybe, or we could be or 

we will - or perhaps ‘us’ - disjoints my understanding of

I want.

You whispered offshore syllables, once,

in tones that buttered up my ear. Deposited 

an oily slink that never sank

but lay in wait of lonely and drunk

Thursdays in that place I never got. 

Escape lacks romance when you’re lost in where to run. 

In shunning the futility of you and 

your hot-headed want of everything and nothing. 

Your egoistic nihilism

mirrored all too late. Yet that fragile thinking’s second 

home lives on inside that second head, the one 

despising the advance of sweaty future 

other.