O Boy; O Sticker; O Knife. You are sharpest in the kitchen
when you stoop and place your chin on Billy’s shoulder.
Show me how to crowd Sid into the corner counter
as the corn syrup drips down a white t-shirt, as bodies
litter the first floor like hastily discarded boxers. I do not
want to be Sid. I do not want to be Rose McGowan, safely
severed in a cat flap, hanging from the garage door. O Good
Boy. You’ll let Billy get you in the arm, in the gut. Get up, Billy!
Get it up! O Hands behind your head, elbows skyward and chest
wide. Even as I watch pint after pint of you fall onto the kitchen tiles,
I can’t do it. I can’t be her again, can’t clutch the formica. Teach me
to intone, Stop it, Billy! I can’t take it anymore. I’m feeling a little
woozy here. I need to be you this time, bent forward and leaning
toward him. I see you keening, a performance. So does Billy; he sees
you; he’s leering. It’s so tender. Last masks standing, you and Billy:
the last mascs standing. My turn, you huff, cradling your hemorrhaging
stomach. Don’t look at me: trembling, knifeless. Stay with the moment
of tension, the withholding.
                                                         Will Billy give you your well-earned
knife, the chance to get up, to be inside him? O Moment before Billy
relents or betrays. O Beat between will he and won’t he. You and I, Matt,
we can live at this altar. Take me with you. We’ll both go woozy.