Holes

Cigarette smoke hunkers round the angle-poise. A vile yellow fog thickening the air, congealing your thoughts. You want/ you do not want. The words slowed to meaninglessness. The sluggish sound of them sucked in with each tight nicotine tainted breath. Wanting. Like the empty ache after masturbation. The hole that will never be filled. Wanting. You feel the wantonness of it in the pit of your belly. A hunger that drives snakes to eat their tails and sends fools to dreams of chocolate, drugs and sex. Wanting. You know it most in the dark hole below. Fucking and being fucked. Men, women, images, demons. You've had them all. You have filled and been filled. But never have you been fulfilled. Never. Until now. You think, maybe. Maybe. Shaman, raking your way through a fragmenting underworld: crawling over sharp, broken things; china doll parts, razorblades, watch springs. And for a moment there, you realise you are truly revolting to yourself.

What is this love you think you feel?

You love her/ you love her not. The questions plucked like petals from hemlock. You nibble them with the puckered lips of the connoisseur. The gourmet who has had too many holes. The salt-earth aroma of them conjured up like so many words. Small, tight holes. Hot wet holes. Holes of every taste and texture. Like wines, you can describe every nuance of their flavour.

But what is this love you think you feel? Something beyond the boredom of fucking: the endless, but compulsive dinner of nothing? The realisation that you are revolting to yourself? The desire to transcend the banality of simply being?

You love her/ you love her not. The image of her with briars of blue cornflowers woven through the sunlight gold of her hair. You ache to touch, to stroke the downy cheek, the crook of arm, the blush of freckles: to sink into the dark, endless blue of her eyes. Longing, wanting, needing. You love her/ you love her not. Blue blue blue. Everything is blue. The water of her turning your headstrong planets top-heavy, spinning orbits of chaos. You have never felt as deliriously delicious as this. Not even at fourteen, with unrequited lust painting pastel fantasies of love.

You love her/ you love her not. How many times have you had your hole and felt nothing? How many times have you clung to the shores, as the rip-tide dragged you under? All that flesh. All these holes. All those dangerous nights turned to nothing.

She has destroyed everything. This Kali Ma dressed in blonde softness, with her breasts of sweetened poisoned milk.

Midnight. The hours spiral away in narcotic confusion. The clarity you sought to possess eludes you still. Another pill?

As if you could tear salvation from God's winking eye. The God who comes only in moments of despair. The God who couldn't care. The God who was never there, except in her embrace.

The telephone is hot vulva pink.

You could call. But not before you know whether you love her or you love her not. Damn her: she's ruined everything. Turned flesh into mere flesh, holes into mere holes.

Black midnight. The city pulses with sex. The Saturday night prowlers and ghosts seeking their own extinction. And tonight, you are separate: outside, watching dispassionately, as the strangle tango begins the process of its own completion.

Another pill? You think you will. Something to see you into the sober light of Sunday morning. Something to lead you to comprehension.

Meanwhile the ghost of you haunts the pick up joints. Tequila rapido, absinthe, after shock, cocaine: leading you on to the inevitable expiation of flesh. Is it too late to get your coat?

Ghosts.

But you cannot leave. The telephone is hot vulva pink and you love her/ you love her not.

The moon tracks a slow arc across the sky. Bodies briefly couple. Orgasms ring out into a void of impermanence. Atoms disperse and reform. And then, all are sullenly alone.

Your cock presses hard against the dark cotton of your trousers at the thought of it. All that fucking. All that knotted, sweating flesh. And yet, so desperately sad. Your fingers cradle your balls. Comforting your world weary soul. You dance solo through the schizophrenic night. The moon - half eaten - calls, cold and white. The telephone is hot vulva pink: tempting your fingers. Across the city - seven digits away - she is naked, warm, willing, waiting for your loving. She loves you/ she loves you not.

When you think of her, it is more than tits and holes. She's the home you've been seeking all these years. She is moon, sun, stars. A scattering of light that turns the sky away from night.

And now everything else is corruption and rotten flesh. You love her/ you love her not. Remembering the taste of her, the touch of her. Angelic, golden and clear. As if she were made from finer dust.

You imagine her petrol blue eyes. The clouds passing away. A clear and calm day. The fruit of the forbidden tree. A forgiving God. A pink telephone. A harbour of still waters. The touch of her fingers on your chest. The crinkle of her cheek as she smiles. The smell of summer. Dandelion fairies blown in the wind. She loves you/ she loves you not. She loves you/ she loves you not.

Her petrol blue eyes

You drown and you burn

The spectre of flesh.

How can you love her and love her not?

Hours into the morning, nothing is resolved. You love her/ you love her not. A sleeping pill for each which way. You slide under the duvet: alone and lonely. Your fingers cupped round your balls. Chaste. Safe. The marshmallow wonders of chemistry dragging you out into the warm dark seas. You love her/ you love her not. Sinking into dreamless sleep. Tomorrow is a hundred million light years away.