I willingly
Accept these sins
As products
Of misunderstanding
For ways
In which God
Has intended
So humans may
Savor this flesh

As even
The smallest kiss
Is recalled
With absence
Of pleasure
When the biggest
Part of me festers
On sex as a danger
To love

By threats
No heart can redeem
If gaping wounds
Imply weakness
And wallowing deep
In said torments
Brings feeling
Through poisonous
Gains

Like bleeding out
From our wills
To replace what need
Is delinquent
By allowing
Responsible anger
To soften
Such blows
We inflict

Before falling down
Upon knives
Opening tears
Without purpose
And ignoring
Cues
Of our morals
To thread such cuts
With that stitch

Like reasons
For remedied ills
Determined quick
By our choices
Lonely as days
Between moments
Holding lifetimes
Raw
In their hands –

How I wager
Death
Against faith
From a fleeting truth
Among bodies
Longing for touch
As their purpose
But denying loss
As some end

Kneeling hard
Under weights
Like bottles
Stones
And persistence
Of heaviest lies
Bearing answers
Trapping fate and chance
Underfoot

So memories
Vaguely smother
Such breath
That’s left to remember
What women
Were merely
Addictions
And partners
The honest cure

Trampled
Though I remain
Beneath this past
Still victim
To a standard
Yielded within me
From emptiness
Driven
By bliss.

– J. Pigno