Dark Nipples

“Must everyone know my nipples are dark,” she implored once in a Facebook message
After finding that I shared a poem that documented my lust for her
(And her nipples, of course,)
On my Facebook wall.
I could see her eyes in my mind when I read her words.
The anger, the hands on her hips
As if I am a child
In need of boundaries.
I’m a poet.
Yes, they must know.
The world must know
That they are brown,
I make them stiff
And it makes my life complete
To play with them,
To suck them.

Now that she’s gone
I’ve lost my words.

So that should make her glad.

My poetry is now as irrelevant
As a happy ending
To this
Love affair.
Kiss me
Or don’t.
Love me
Or don’t.
If I don’t survive the night
I’ll somehow send you a message
Like a Hail Mary pass
On some social media
That will be irrelevant
Before I hit Send.

I was always that sensitive boy
Crawling along the walls
Trying not to be noticed
And sobbing
When no one noticed him.

She noticed me back then.
I was unaware.
So much later
I noticed her back.
She wishes now
I never did.

I tilt the glass,
I think of her,
I sit in near darkness,
Vivid psychological squalor.
Remembering all the moments,
Still stiffened and bleeding
From the betrayal,
Wondering which one she really is

But fearing that she is
All of them.

Seeing her stripping down
For someone else.
Giving what I need
To someone else.

Knowing that my need
Is not as powerful
As her want,
My love not as strong
As her disregard,
My tenderness weaker
Than her will to deny.

I feel her nipples now,
Stiff between my fingers,
Aware that those moments live on only
In my mind
And that I will never
Know her again,
Be loved by her
Or possess her body,
Heart and mind
Like I did
Once,
Not more than an eye blink
In the expanse
Of this nothing-at-all
We refer to
As time.

I posted another poem about her
On my wall
(She was gone already and did not see it)
And someone responded, sighing in exasperation,
“Another poem about the brown girl.”
Yes, another poem about the brown girl.
Our love ended
But I am still
Alive,
Kind of.

You know what I mean?

I Command the Dead

Drunken and drowsy,
I command the dead.
Armies of stone emerging from the graves
Of night
Wearing the vestments of war,
As dead as our Jesus
On the hill at Golgotha.
They ride on horses, swords alight, skulls in flames,
Plucking out the eyes of my enemies
And slaying the dragons that guard
The treasure
In my dreams.
Making beautiful women
Stand naked before me
And trembling men
To beg my forgiveness.
Riding into the sunlight of dawn,
They disappear into the newly wakened sun,
Leaving me here
To contemplate my helplessness
Swordless, horseless, flameless and
Alone.

I Embrace My Darkness

I embrace my darkness
As if it is a furious lover with the tongue of a snake and
Armed with a knife.
I disarm her with my acquiescent smile,
My supplicating eyes.
She drops her knife and slays me with her own eyes.
She’s a hot one.

I am a snapped twig.
I am a cracked bowl leaking rainwater.
I am wings aflame,
A gutter overflowing blood,
A falling leaf,
A rusty axle.
I am a leaf in the dirt,
Brittle and trampled underfoot.

My innocence is a swan with a broken neck;
Eyes gouged, tongue lolling.

She is tailor made for me. Her—my darkness.
She digs her claw shiv in as she melts me with her terrifying kisses.
I hate her but she seduces me each night, again and again.
I hold her tonight as I douse the single light
And she whispers to me, telling me
Everything is as it should be.

My eyes are demented spheres, pinhole burns:
My soul a vast crevasse, my heart a murky puddle—
Deceptively depthless.
Darkness, she flows in channels all around me.
I turn in this bed and my body, my heart meets no one.

No one but her.