Changing of the Loins

I lived chasing hot skin pink, years of fun,

poised all hot & high, no humility

carnal pleasure had its vacant web spun

once stuck & stunned, now humbled by chastity.

Such young-dumb-cum-fun, searching for right then,

Urban daze, post-teen emotional haze

no past to disavow, I'd still get noticed then,

so many to amaze, no care for the nays.

Piece by piece, what I thought was freedom

would become my reckless emporium

of restless youth, no bodies enough

o’ Everests of Ass, I’d pine for the stuff.

Lost to saunas of red, to clubs of come

the array of choice & dead-end nothings —

my magical cure to monochrome,

everyone I'd kiss was always something,

lo-res clones of all first loves; Manuel

Alistair, Roy — what armies of them! —

digested, belly boundless, thirst unquelled

from anhedonia I'd hock dark phlegm.

From ten million pecs to the gray of alone,

on a sister’s whim I would return home,

find what I first fled—a loveless house

the genetic blame-game of cat & mouse.

My mojo I’d lost, then sat beneath bough

of carob trees in orange sun South

when what I craved was madness up north —

no scene in the green, how then to move forth?

With no real progress, again I would move

back to cities, to that tired old groove

to scratched vinyl of pain-days engraved;

by my need to please others, still enslaved.

Twelve thousand seven hundred ways in days

still I'd not learned truth can’t be smothered

couldn’t face it then, closeness to another

such was my dread of emotional affrays.

Dejected, I’d build a new maze of lies

& tried to further mask my muted cries —

for courage, for faith, to accept what I'd got —

not waste years believing who I was not.

All layers now stripped, years later through art

have I found my elusive, missing part

there’s no beauty without you can’t find within

so hot pink of skin cools turquoise genuine.