sad house

Here in this sad house I slink away quietly. Doors bolted, windows closed, that hot shut up mustiness hanging heavy. I click over to pornography on the internet. It seems appropriate. It is as far away from love as I can creep at this early hour, sad and on my own. Faces. People. Women who fake pleasure and pain one after another. The violence of men with thick hips and ropes of penises which they twitch in their fists, slapping the cheeks of the women who seem suddenly crazed by the touch. I cannot come in this sad house. I cannot work or read or write or play. I cannot find the energy to write about sex, or touch myself with any conviction. The idea of gentleness and care distracts me. The idea that I might hug and be hugged. The strange and complicated concept of love. The sad and awful people having sex on the stage of the internet. The idea that they will go home, tired and sad and angry.

I turn the sex off. I must complete this now that it has begun. I think about hugging, I think about the quietness of a kiss. I think about interlaced fingers. I think about the ocean. The slow passing of whales. The echo of it. I finish with a gentle shudder.