every man wishes
to be cut from the pages
of his life
even if it means being
torn in tiny increments
and be left with a
jagged border
filaments on your skin
as flesh touches flesh
whisking you away

that day, in seconds on
the second floor 
of that grimy, scummy club
flesh splattered against
the imaginary walls
so that I could maintain my
anonymity, I saw how
eager the populous was
offering up the fragile
edges of their pages to be
cut or
torn

except him

with his blazed ebony skin
gleaming against the night
he performed the incision
upon himself
to be free
from the torturous braise
of this uneven gray life

he descended upon me
machete eyes mowing a path,
pulpwood lifeless leaflets
like rotten rose petals blanketing
the step in time with a
heartbeat that was no longer mine

he ripped me from the
pages of my loose life
graveled voice announcing
my new name to the world
sandpaper skin belied
satin lips like waves washing
over me, spooning lust
into my belly

splayed across the threshold
of this taboo was truth that had
been hidden from me

there was no difference in
closed eyes and open heart
my affections charged this
breath and we crackled in our
passion slaying preconceptions,
prejudice, my father’s hope that
I was like him in any way and
a line
between what is okay
and what is real