Contributor: John Tustin

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i am compelled to find you.
i am compelled to arrive
and fling myself at your feet.
i am compelled to find your body
like a moth finds light;
like a worm finds darkness;
like a slug finds wetness;
like hatching sea turtles strive toward the ocean.
i am compelled to touch your outstretched body
and taste your body.
your body as brave and delicate
as a laden branch.
your nipples that stand like autumn
and applaud for me
as my flesh screams in torrid agony,
your mouth that lies agile and tastes
like sugar and peaches.
your eyes that implore me and explore me
and reveal me.
your legs that wind their way up my back
and attach like vines on the church wall.
your eyes that betray tandem supplication and defiance.
i am compelled to hold tight your wrists
and thrust my force, my weight, my self
on you and in you
and we scuffle like that,
attached at the thigh and waist,
sticky and dripping,
eyes interlocking,
and my waist will never leave your thigh.
my perspiration is for you, my climax is for you,
my tears and my open kisses,
my love and my fleas and my sad abandoned chrysalis,
my jail cell and my damp wilting flowers,
their petals falling and glistening for you.
and i am for you, my eyes are for you,
and i am for you, compelled onward by foolishness
and kismet.
i am compelled to find your body,
explore it and adore it,
anoint it and adorn it,
obtain it and contain it,
and put myself into you
and pull myself out
feeling better,
being better,
compelled to do it
until i can’t do anything anymore.
until i can’t do anything
but lie fragile in your arms
and wait for my own body to succumb to a heaven that will not compare
to the feeling in my stomach when you approach,
the fullness of my heart when you are there,
the emptiness of my heart when you are not.
compelled to lie there
until i admit that the earth is just some
blue and green and brown thing
that God put down
so you had a place
to be.
and i am here
to be
with you
so you will not
be alone there.


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