Flaw Salad

Every flood of affection is peppered with disgust. Or that’s how it begins to feel. Has there been a lyrical moment, a rush of tender feelings, unaccompanied by sick, violent repulsion? Have you ever wanted to pull a body close, only, and not also kick it away?

Uncomplicated. You hold on your fingertips the promise of uncomplicated, sold in newsstands and across enormous screens in packed theaters where young lovers chomp popcorn and lean closer, brushing fingers as they reach for double-strawed sodas, high on that first electric touch.

You jam your body against others’ and not a kilowatt, not a spark. Flesh on flesh, you chase that unattainable something, and you find only sweat. You find hair and teeth and tongues and toes. You find beds and smells and bruises and regrets. Filth and squalor, this animal interpretation of the soft, dignified unions you once saw played out. You strive to emulate.

On the stains, you lie. How many have sullied these sheets? How many, and does it matter, and can they smell each other here?

You smell nothing, feel nothing, become nothing in the chaotic pursuit of uncomplicated. You are a snoring beast like all the rest, and your sick, wasted body will slumber amid the insignificant wreckage of your insignificant life.