The Leash

I wrote this a few months ago about an almost unbearably sexy photo of a friend which included a glimpse of, amongst other things, a little star-shaped sticker on one of their fingernails. One of six, as it turned out.

The leash

One of the most beautiful people I've had my tongue inside
is fucking themselves in the shower. They are
wet and pale and perfect. They are right there.

To focus on details makes it possible
when the whole is so much,
when even the sum of the parts is so much, so much.
The details are merely many, and that's
just a question of time.

"Six of my nails possess stars," they say --
Six words, a sixth of a square centimetre of photo.
The lock of dark wet hair on their shoulder is almost more than I can bear to contemplate.

This person will understand the concentrating power of deprivation.
We hungry ones, blindfolded and tied, we know in our quivering bones
that seeing less and wanting more,
that waiting, waiting, waiting,
that feeling the senses strain after the un-get-at-able --
these are fierce and necessary joys.

I pull at the leash, I tug and I whine, but I need the leash.
It is the only thing that allows me to be here at all.