Untitled by Marie Martin

All of your mystery is gone.
Where is there for you to go
with your former enchantment,
your overexposure? For there is nowhere
where we are not seen.
Everyone knows your face.
Dusty mussel, empty flask,
the sick reek of whiskey halitosis
shoring up at dawn.

First doorsteps brought revival, then
beds, at night, when you were drunk.
You couldn't tell the difference.
The sheets were cold and tight
against the mattress. You slept.
For eight hours you were home.

You let him fuck you like his cock
itself was a promise,
like his desire was a promise.
You pulled his hips against you
until he was so deep inside of you that your hips ached
and your knuckles turned pink and almost snapped.
And you bit his shoulder and he came and you were satisfied for that
moment, which was very soon over and therefore no longer enough.

What did you want,
what did you want so badly
that you were willing to do
what you were willing to do?

Your pearls became pearls of sickness,
your simulacra of wisdom,
a simulacra of decay.
There is no balance, only resistance and give.
And by now you know
that your wretched excess exacerbated
your already evanescent epiphanies.

Tell me about the cock.
Tell me what you whispered into the infinitesmal
velvet mouth of its wondering desire.
You know enough to know.
Tell me you will always come back
to the troth of your faith, to feast on the body.
Tell me you will always come back
to watch the divine savior rise.