It is not a kind beat – the one that warms the colour of your eyes, the pupil gawping in a state of near hospitalization, draining the outside of all significance, for the life of it is in – in the pinnacle of unleash and the throb of completely knowing your lust; drag, animal, bated lush, tilted, and fruit injected, electric, hating like lover’s do.

It is the flick of blood and gun, the running water, too, a bowel sounding vowel, a liquid room, where you were already a thing so desperate – so inconsolable, incapable, screaming -the only tool mastered -rolling in sweats of pink and orange and fast grabbing fists.

It is the slip of alcohol, the drip of someone’s lips too close/too far for your reach, and the name you should not have said, buried deep; a mafia fancy – the rivulets of gold in your bones, taking shape in the night-conker-whacked souls of your head.

It is a touch.

It is being left unfed

for days.

It is the clothing kiss of cherry stones,  syrup smears, sticky thoughts the bed tolls, and rolling folds of sadness  - a bird speared on a song all night long and a blue pinched pout, hungry in the cold of the morning

like a chapped tulip.