Meeting Desire
You wouldn’t recognise desire
in the emptiness in your mouth
making way for words
that your stomach is already breaking down
You wouldn’t know desire if it licked you
You think it’s meant to kick & claw
Not snuggle between your cells
Breathing the quiet places between people
You wouldn’t trust desire
Even if you laid bare your tender innards
To jobs as sharp as knives
Chasing labels that leave paper cuts
You wouldn’t engage with desire
Because it opens up your raw places
And warm tears & rough bandages sound like pain & salt to you
You wouldn’t want desire
if it held your hand
but you might give it room & board
if it held a gun to your self-esteem
You wouldn’t welcome desire
as a higher expression of your own self
But you would surrender gratefully to it
if you thought it took you hostage
You prefer captivity to freedom
& control to release
But you don’t see that they’re all but
Games of desire
As long as we know the rules
Maybe it’s okay to forget you made them
So…shall we start?
(On Instagram)
