To play on the boundary of justice—
to instill fear, yet execute one’s will.
To feel freely,
yet understand the consequences of disinhibition.

Sit in a garden, one of the first days.
Peer upon a tree’s child,
and beg it be yours.

The snake slithers in its lies.
Blades of grass glisten brilliantly
against its pearlescent skin.

In feigned intention, you bare yourself raw—
the sidewalk of muscle and bone
writhes beneath your calcinated interior.

your eyes dry from the open air,
begging to be quenched, not by water,
but by a kiss.

Fill your cup—
your blood, the skin you can’t stand—
with theirs.
To chase the ardor of their wants
is how you find your own.

To be obsessed,
within your legal limits.

With the risk
that you may be rendered fleshless and alone—
as you started,
as you shall inevitably end.

So you tear sweet meat
from this fellow bare fruit.

Its juice:
fraught with pain—
a shy glimmer in an ocean of stars.
You chase it,
careful not to break
whatever tethers you.
Yet its glow bears no warmth.

It never called to you to begin with.

This is what you wanted:
this prickle of pain,
this installation of self-destruction.