In the Dark

I devise a plan:
I will take you
to places you’ve never seen.
I book my ticket
and we’re off:
jetting across the globe,
the adventure of a lifetime.

We go to New York, Libya, Malaysia,
and now here I am in Italy,
your rounded body
beside me.
The sinking
thrill of my fingers in warm sand
and then it dawns on me,
how at each destination
you have been unable to say
what has charmed you.

There is no way for me to know
which you preferred:
did you enjoy the skyscraper views
of New York City?
Or wandering through the walled tapestry
of the medina in Tripoli?
Or, did you fall in love with the idyllic
white-sand beaches of Tioman Island?

And now, I wonder,
should I scatter you here
on the long, sandy shores of Sicily?
Should I let go, let you
become
one with those pristine
foreign
waters?
Or take you home with me
to sit silent
on the mantelpiece
like you did in your bed
for so long?

 

Embracing Vulnerability

Slowly, I dispense myself
into you,
punctured—drained,
the wage of me cut
to nothing,
I trailblaze
your love-slicked tongue,
wet and red-slipped;

swing on your pendulum-uvula,
look down your windpipe-telescope,
see your insides lined with stars,
digest constellations.

Down, within,
I’m a room made larger with lighting,
I’m the fat on a slab of meat,
I get tangled in your snake-intestines,
feel them coil around my throat:
prey constricted.

Panic-breathed, I,
as if thrown from a bucket, chuck
myself out of you,
I’m all the worst parts of me,
all the best parts of me:
satisfaction stretched in between.

Over time, I stop
swinging, become the meat, stargaze for hours,
and each time I empty myself into you,
I find that I’m still full,
unspent,
eyes shining:
gold-bright coins.

 

 

42495041_285417968963623_1873177452742705152_n-1David Hanlon is from Cardiff, Wales, and currently living in Bristol, England. He has a BA in Film Studies & is training part-time as a counsellor/therapist. You can find his work online in Dirty Paws Poetry Review, Into The Void, Impossible Archetype & Barren Magazine, among others. twitter.com/DavidHanlon13

Featured photo credit: Amanda Ollinik  @Allunderonemoon