words

keep walking if you must, dear girl,
my morals are quite sound
inasmuch as morality can make noise
and though i smell of resin, caffeine,
women and demons
i am a man above all and as all men
i aim to own the earth and all things
contained within it.

you will ache for the way
in which i breathe fire,
you will long throughout your life
for the burning of my soul,
for the way in which i ignite,
the electricity my fingertips possess
and the rush of static and turmoil
as my hands slide across your skin,
through your tangled hair
and across your elastic borders,
all of the immoral acts
that live in the coursing of my blood
you will desperately want,
you will require what you have forsaken
in order to feel alive.

this is what life is then,
a series of negotiations
with your head and your heart,
weighing heaven against hell,
trying to find some reasonable compromise
and yet in this you have chosen space,
time, the cold certainty
of your nice and normal future,
quiet nights with boring men
who will never know you or your heart
in the way that i could have.

keep walking, dear girl,
if that is what you have to do,
work that stride into worlds
owned by other, more tolerable men,
men more suitable to the calm
and measured pulse i have made rapid
and felt beating hot in your neck,
keep walking beyond the reach
of my terribly deviant hands
and try to outrun
the desperate pace of my heart.

-S.C. Martinez