Consider the quotidian horrors—this life your 80s sitcom with a laugh-track, the audience who knows how this ends.

the glowing,/torch-stricken thing I couldn’t quit.

she nods and he hands her a cup. they sit in comfortable silence.

If i cry,/we get to heaven

but you tenderly offer a hand, then lunge & yank the broom from me

(euphoria eats all language)

One enters a Hellmouth like a snack but exits like a bullet.

184 miles on a full tank, snow on the ground, muddied as third act makeup, seventy miles an hour, headlight out, books at my side like wallflowers

What would we do if we lost our limbs, our genitals, and lay next to each other, helpless throughout the endless room of night, our skin turning blue without touching, blue with loneliness, blue as an empty promise of forever love?

When I began working as a submissive at a commercial dungeon in 2013, Fifty Shades of Grey was topping (pun intended) the bestseller lists…