Desiderium*
by
Shannon Barber
I want.
I need.
Black wings, a flutter against my skull. I see you and can’t stop the thoughts. Is this mania? When I see the skin beneath your ear, all I can think about is how soft it is, how vulnerable. Teeth or blade? Kiss or bite? Predation. Lust.
Thoughts, bubbling like black water. Thoughts red and bloody.
I want.
I need.
Id rattling the bars. I am a shell.
A caress that precedes a slap, your hand around my throat. A threatening squeeze that echoes in my cunt.
I want.
I need.
My nails in your back, dragging skin until thin blood mixes with hot sweat.
Later, when we are spent, bruised and battered we will weep.
Drop salt tears on my breast, your cock hard again in my hand.
I am want.
I am need.
*I am longing for what is lost.
PS
I will craft nerd about this tomorrow and explain a thing. Also it is dedicated to and inspired by one of my Muses Remittance Girl.
I love the way you use the guttural quality of particular, precise words to create a full-stop that breaks as hard against the shore as your right-justified lines.
I feel like there is a fancy name for that or am I trippin? And thank you. You heard the thing.
There’s totally a fancy name for it, but I got 3 hours of sleep last night and heck if I can think of it.
The prose-poem aspects of this were very cool. And the conflation of violence and eroticism is always gripping to read. I especially enjoyed “Id rattling the bars” and “Is this mania?” – the Freudian elements helped distinguish this from pure erotica and made it more literary.
This is really intense. I like the stylistic choices you made with words justified to the right and the words you chose for description. The subject matter has me wondering, though: is her lover dead? Did he beat her? I’m a bit confused and concerned for your narrator.
All will be revealed today I promise. I’m doing a big deconstruction about it today.
I enjoyed the intensity of this piece and the use of the right justification really worked for me. Thanks for sharing.
The formatting gave an so let breathless read to this. My favorite line was: I see you and can’t stop the thoughts. Is this mania?
This is such an intense piece. The right justified letters almost gave it a breathless pause between the sensuality. It was erotic without being exploitative. I get the feeling that theirs is a relationship of violence and even harder loving.
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