1. The nervous sort of friction of anxiously timid hands grazing freshly exposed skin mimics the subtleties of affection. Sin feels a lot like lips, a stranger’s kiss. His fingertips trace the innermost dips in her collarbone. His palms clasp the flattest part of her hips. Sensual breathing is rhythmic. He exhales, she holds her breath. He inhales, they share one. Perspiration drenched flesh carries a familiar scent.

2. Love is a hollow term. Love never moved like this. This is more than love; this is poetry. Perspiration drenched flesh carries a familiar scent. This is poetry. There’s poetry in the interweaving of legs and the absence of speech. This is more than love.

3. This is something more like sex, but sex is a lifeless word. Sex never breathed like this. This is more than sex this is rhythm.

4. He inhales, they share one. This is rhythm. Rhythm is cadence, rhythm is sequence, rhythm is pattern, rhythm is sound, this is more than sex this is rhythm. Rhythm pumps libido in the form of lascivious bodily contortions and poetry seeps muddled impassioned screams before distortion.

5. My energy flows in the form of drunken lust confessions, and I live for messy emotional expression. Liquid courage leaks scared thoughts and drips multisyllabic sequences of shy feelings recently freed. And since I was never too keen on cleaning, I prefer to let them soak in and stain me. I prefer to be stained by the boy with the wonderland body, marred with recklessly handled courage pooled in tightly cusped hands sifting through last night’s carelessness. I prefer to be soaked by the boy who thinly veils his pride.

6. Liquid courage overflows and oozes vulnerable thoughts in waves of admission of fear and misplaced affection, and guilt will always be the greatest equalizer.

7. This is more than just dark shit.

8. This is the deliberate rebuking of all that we’ve been taught to be light. I prefer to let it soak in and stain me. I’ve been marked. I prefer to let it soak in and stain me. I’ve been identified. I prefer to let it soak in and stain me. I’ve been “mishandled”. I prefer to let it soak in and stain me. I’ve been “damaged”. I prefer to let it soak in and stain me. I’ve already been relegated. Forgive me Father for I have sinned, this is my first indiscretion.

9. But God’s love is sacrificial right? And there’s no sacrifice greater than one’s own flesh so- wouldn’t that make this stained skin holy?

Tylah Gantt is a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame and is  pursuing her MFA at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her work exists in the grey space between prose and poetry. She currently resides in New York City.