By Ivana Devcic
Content warning: NSFW
How curious it is that a controlled hit –
the essence of each touch between us –
unfettered, untethered, unchained,
could become ultra-violent.
Even in the deepest act of love –
with its ferocious intimacy,
and penetration to the soul –
bruises flower along necks and
down spines, like dawn,
blooming in the sky
Hungry kisses,
stolen with permitted force,
and intoxicating desire,
always leave both parties
chafed and scraped and skinned,
licking each other’s wounds.
At the apex of this
mortification of the flesh,
the dual deities of being –
darkness and light, winter and spring,
pain and pleasure, death and life –
ceremonially mate.
First, the zealot genuflects; then,
ravages the sacred bread,
so gently, so precisely.
Deftly, he throws wide his hands,
moans in exaltation, for he is thirsty,
and his goddess is the river where
he would drown in rapture.
So taut he thrums, barely chained power
escapes from him in slick sweat.
He dives in, like Semele,
unknowingly awaits his obliteration
in the presence of her divinity.
His tongue laps up her chalice of blood
with furious penitence, and yet, it never dries –
it spills over, submerging the mortal
in apocalyptic ichor, graciously given to him.
Upon the altar,
with his final cry,
he impales his beloved
goddess –
a violent end.