when prayers are not enough

I want to write of faith.

Proselytize the beautifully corrupt notion that I can save you by making you bleed for me.

Acknowledge the ache you harbor and the agony of being used in a way that leaves you warm and sore. I want to hear your prayers for the kind of release that unwinds you, unmakes you, until you are a ribbon of gold unraveling forever.

But I cannot; my mind, instead, is consumed with tangibles.

I think of your hip, rounded and smooth, and the slow dip of your back when you’re braced against the wall. I think of the scent of your skin, vanilla and spice, and the low heat between your thighs stoked with words and fingertips until I can feel it pressing into the palm of my hand in rhythm to your breathing.

And when I have you there at the edge, I think of the small sounds you make, words of lost coherency, the soft cries and sharper mewls of pain an animal makes when deprived of some basic need.

I want to write of faith.

But today I need more.