cold wind, foreign, with freezing, cutting water in it from
some other continent, wrathful, wanting to purge the ledge
and own the sea. A ll night we fucked with the wind trying to
push us down to death and I tore m y fingers against the stone
trying to hold on, the skin got stripped o ff m y hands, and
sometimes he was against the wall and m y head fell backwards
going down toward the sea and on the Roman walls we fucked
for who was braver and who was stronger and w ho w asn’t
afraid to die. He wanted to find fear in me so he could leave
me, so he could think I was less than him. He wanted to leave
me. He was desperate for freedom from love. On the Roman
wall we fucked so far past fear that I knew there was only me,
it didn’t matter where he went or what he did, it didn’t matter
who with or how many or how hard he tried. There was just
me, the one they kept telling him was a whore, all his great
friends, all the men who sat around scratching themselves, and
no matter how long he lived there would be me and if he was
dead and buried there would still be me, ju st me. I couldn’t
breathe without him but they expect that from a woman. I’d
have so much pain without him I w ouldn’t live for a minute.
But he w asn’t supposed to need me so bad you could see him
ripped up inside from a mile away. The pain w asn’t supposed
to rip through him; from wanting me; every second; now. He
was supposed to come and go, where he wanted, when he
wanted, get laid when he wanted, do this or that to me, what
he wanted, sex acts, nice and neat, ju icy and dirty but nice and
neat picked from a catalogue o f what men like or what men
pay for, one sex act followed by another sex act and then he
goes aw ay to someone else or to somewhere else, a kiss i f he
condescends, I blow him, a fuck, twice if he has the time and
likes it and feels so inclined; and I’m supposed to wait in
between and when he shows up I’m supposed to suck and I’m
supposed to rub, faster now, harder now, or he can rub, taster
now, harder now, inside me if he wants; and there’s some
chat, or some money, or a cigarette, or maybe sometimes a
fast dinner in a place where no one will see. But he’s burning so
bright it’s no secret he’s on fire; and it’s me. Anyone near him
is blinded, the heat hurts them, their skin melts, more than
they ever feel when they fuck rubbing themselves in and out o f
a woman. H e’s burning but he’s not indestructible. H e’s the
sun; I’m smashed up against him; but the sun burns itself up;
one day it will be cold and dead. He’s burning towards death
and a man’s not supposed to. A dry fuck with a dry heart is
being a man; a dry, heartless fuck with a dry, heartless heart.
He’s the great dancer, the most beautiful; he had all the women
and all the men; and now he is self-immolating; he is torrential
explosions o f fire, pillars o f flame, miles high; he is a force field
o f heat miles wide. The ground burns under him and anything
