to Ourida
i.
oh stupid icy hot of love rubbed onto my
heart's cockles, i crackled in the black night
waiting for you, then O shone from the
hateful darkness the way a skizzard's
eyes leap out of a bog in the night when
a flashlight lays into them with a sobering
beam that i could have used when O's hair
dangled from her skull like sooty prison
shackles as she soaked her brown eyes
deep into my young wet body with the
unmistakable glance of a woman who
knew how test a man's waters just by
looking; o how she gazed, i felt she
planned to throw a surprise party all
over my penis with cake & everything!
ii.
she brought me to a hotel suite...
a slender strong hand stroked my cheek,
the violet nails bit into my jaw as she leaned
in to invite me somewhere using no meaning
save the card of her mouth opening & the
hot poker of her tongue chunking sparks
inside my ear till flames whirled in gorgeous
cursive loops through my mind as i imagined
the veritable iced cream truck of frozen goods
in my crotch melting away under the perverse
music box jingle she composed in my aural canal
to leave only the hard swollen pink panther eyes that
O prized out from under my legs with her perfect
O of an ass filled in with round, elegant bones &
ample bouncy mounds of flesh where she imprisoned
my wayfaring cock as my balls slapped plangently
against her thighs while she arched her back, the glorious
O writhing to love the guts from my nuts.
the room service ladies did not bother knocking...
iii.
banishing me from the outside world, this crooked Eve straightened
my giant sunflower stem & drank all my seeds; O, i felt like an asp that
had its fangs milked into a plastic cup till the venom glands went wan
from dryness because O drained the sand from me with her hourglass
figure that spoke vows throughout me: with this lip i thee pierce.
with this nipple i thee ring. with this ring i thee tongue. fuck
her word was good. When she was done i wrenched her ears to
my mouth & told her the truth: you'll still be a woman when i'm done. promise.
lay it out. lay out all of the blood.
take no wrists with your earnest savagery.
go alone.
tell about the fat girl nice enough
to hump you on the edge of a futon.
tell 'em it fell over. tell 'em
you said lean & she leaned & the
two of you didn't budge a single inch
like witnesses to a drive-by stabbing.
love the others there.
love their wound up guts out.
love them with lies from your
past. the good ones that use
words such as happy/love/please/
i/do/promise/joy/years/
finally.
weep the tears not possible
when you were alive because
of numbness & coin & quiet.
weep 'em on her shoulder hard.
sob them on his shoulder hard.
cry long after they walk off.
do not take their shit about
opening up your body to play
the rows of golden harp strings.
crumple to signal your wholesale
emotional shutdown for your time
in the wheelchair, for your time
being called a callous monster,
for your time going so so cold,
for your time when no one kept
their broken trust with you for
a short while until their car &
pancakes lives came down soft &
sticky all over the conversation.
pant under the hot scrutiny of
their disgust at your not crucifying
yourself, at your not starving yourself,
at your not marrying the first thing to
fuck at you, at your not listening when
the one tender voice wanted to help you
& all you did was get mad for having to
wait for your inner ear to stop wiggling.
hold your hands to them. show 'em the
cuts from the dishes, from the weights
in the yard, from the broom handle, from
the rats you tried to keep; from the slips
with the hammer, from the fingernails that
wanted you awake way past two in the morning.
tell 'em they can take that line of yellow
wires and shove it around their necks until
their big bloated lips match the night sky.
fail, at your goal of resting, by greeting death in your bed &
you should be able to sneak by the way the promise that this
will not hurt disburdens you of the fact that pain is all the time.
lay yourself out. lay yourself down softly under the snuggle covers.
KJ Hays lives in Orange County, California with his dog, Mr. Bear, and their snake, Ace. Some of KJ's credits include: Bareback Magazine, Sex and Murder, decomp, deadpaper, and Why Vandalism?. Sometimes he works on building his modeling portfolio. He has a poem in the first print issue of Gutter Eloquence. Say hello, if you like: khays45 AT gmail DOT com.