The Cerebral Catalyst

Coming back into your world
and I am so terrified
of distraction
of reaching in my wallet
only to find crumpled receipts
of reading your body like a map
and not knowing if I belong
in your hemisphere
or any other for that matter.

Will I take you down
or will you take me?

The only roads I can read
are lit up in red
like caution signs
like stop signs
trying to slow me down

but I'm not sure

All I can make out is
the rush:

driving down dirt roads
Your hands on my thighs
Fingers curved
Nails short and rough
from playing guitar

Sometimes I am listening
as you speak
sometimes I can't
concentrate

nervous because
I know this is a sin

because I know
how this will end
because I am
just barely learning
to be good
and I cannot keep
my hands to myself
(not yet)

But I know that there's a quiet whisper
faint enough
but I can make it out:

Kill me now
Please
I feel it in my bones
Like a death rattle

I could never say no to you
Even if I wanted to
Read me my death rites

I can read your palm
I can read your magnetic gaze
like a heliograph
I can chart the spikes
and I can feel them
between my legs
like sparks
like magnets
like solar energy
that I can blame on the full moon.

You park the car,
turn off the head lights,
lean back your seat
and I know this is dishonest
seriously, I know
but I can't stop

(these infidelities always make me nauseous)

Kill me now
Please
I feel it in my bones
Like a death rattle

I could never say no to you
Even if I wanted to
Read me my death rites

But I soon forget
bent over the stick shift
sighing
perilous
fingers in
my mouth
up my
cunt

and it's hard to feel sorry.

______________________________________
Zoe Alexandra's writing has been published in Best Lesbian Erotica 2007 (Cleis Press), My Time — Lunch Book (Poet Plant Press), Zygote in My Coffee, The Commonline Project, Instant Pussy, Mad Swirl, Deconstruction Quarterly, Silenced Press and forthcoming poems will appear in Remark, Pink Elephants on Review, Word Riot and Debris Magazine.

posted 10.15.07.

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