I will be gagged by it - I am made sick by its fumes. Leather reaches into me. I sit cross-legged on hot coals. I am dying of avarice. Pridefully I cling to my wasted flesh. My skin peels in ragged chunks. I am blistering. My bindings are pulled off - I am thrust out of the fire. I am keening for it. There are fingers in my wounds. I am choking on spit and mucus. I am pulled up and out of myself. My head goes up and up and up and my bones are coming too. I am out of my cradle, my sack of loose parts, my burnt ends and my carriage of skin and fat and thick meat. I am dripping as it carries me out to the stage. I hear the cheers. I see the lights! I am ready to entertain! I am unbonded! my necek, my shining set of pure white bones, is longer than it ever was - it streaks wetness through the dull furnace air. Its fingers are in my mouth and my nose. I'm too wet for the stage - I'm too wet to go out! So he shakes me and shakes me, and cracks my back like a whip- coiled- then- straight!

I am wrapped up in him. I am wrapped up in his flesh. I am trapped in a man's body. He is grunting as he twists himself off of me. He pops out of me. Dead wood, all cork, no champagne. I am ugly again. Back into dead flesh. My hole is numb. I am beaten meat. It smells like old smoke and catshit, and dirty water is on the pillow where the pipe flipped and spilled. My eyes are too dry. I slide off the bed and stumble to the shower. My legs aren't working. I get the water running while I get him out of me. The toilet is freezing. The shower curtains are red with iron and mold. The water scalds me. I pull fingers through my tangled hair. I wash my face of hardened spit and sweat. I scrub my armpits. I scrub my crotch. I wash my ass and anus. I let the water beat down on my head and back.

He calls me from the other room. I call him. He steps in with me. I smile and go to kiss him. He pulls me in. We are hard again. He tastes so sour. He pulls me. I wish I was dead. I wish he was killing me. It's his turn to go under the water. I am boiled and bright pink. He is so serious washing his hair. He looks at me and smiles. I am shelled and plucked and shivering and I am happier than I have ever been. I wish I could live in those crooked moments where I am bare of brain and sinking into his face, his eyes, his mouth, his chest, his shoulders. I am drinking him. It's my turn again. We switch places. We graze flesh. He is dripping water. I am burning again.

I remember when we were fucking on your plain mattress with no sheets or covers. School-issued mattress on the floor by the pile of dirty laundry.

You are the avatar of what I crave. You spit me solid. You take me up and make flesh from flesh. Flesh from my flesh! Hands from fingers, lips from teeth! You make my parts sum together: you are the engine to which I am bound. With levers and wires you move me: your arrows fill me like your saint. I live for you. I am dead without you. I am dead for you. I am your meat. Let those hands pull my legs apart- split at the joint. Tear my wings. Peel my breasts with your teeth. Hammer me and make me tender. Eat until nothing is left.

Be my butcher. Be my dog. Be my knife. Shear me of my body. Pull my puppet tendons. Shake me. Bruise me. Break me. Tear truth from me. Cut off my anchors and bring me up to where I can see the crowd. How will they judge my wet bones, my teeth clenched, my eyes wide? How will they see my spine?