Violence

Sam is short and he wants the world to himself.
Some people are like that.
He decides he needs a drink:
"I want a drink," Sam says.
The city is hot teeth on a black sky.
He finds a bar to order a whiskey.
Women are moving their bodies to the beat.
Sam has never touched a woman.
He has never made love to a woman.
He has never kissed her.
There is an invisible wall between Sam and the women moving their bodies across the bar.
He would prefer to tie them up,
tie their legs together,
their arms to the bed,
and make love to them then.
Some people are like that.

*

Khalil is trying to make his soul like air.
He is outside the supermarket.
The sky is a sky the ocean dreams about.
Khalil suffers from a peculiar condition:
the world is too much for him—
strangers’ laughter, the shadows sunlight makes on brick—
his own warm skin—
makes his eyes water.
So he stands on the corner outside the supermarket like a stone in a river,
spreads his fingers,
and makes of himself a sieve.

*

Sam is drunk.
"I am drunk," he decides,
and walks over to a dancing woman.
"I am drunk," he says.
The woman does not move her eyes to look at him.
"I want to tie you up," he says.

Sam is outside the bar with blood on his head.
"I will not go back to that bar again," he thinks.
Instead he makes his way though the city streets as if in a dream.
He does not know what will come next.
Women pass by leaving trails of perfume and warm love.
Men look hungry, or satisfied.
"I will fuck you all," Sam says.
The passerbys look worried, so he says it again--
"I will fuck you all,
I will fuck you all—"
until he is satisfied.

*

Sam passes Khalil on the street corner.
"Fuck you all," Sam tells him.
Khalil is standing with his fingers spread open.
He looks at Sam's eyes with his own.
Sam stops. "I said,
Fuck you all."
Khalil smiles.
He is letting the world try him on.
He is like sunlight, like jewels.
The city wears him like a cloud.
"You hear me, man?" asks Sam.
He is leaning dangerously close.
"You hear what I’m saying?"

*

Sam makes it home and takes off his pants.
He rubs his cock hard and fast, like violence.
There is blood on his hands that will dry and cake while he sleeps.
"…don’t fucking listen," he is saying to himself.
"They don’t fucking listen."
Then he comes.
Some people are like that.