I suck up your joy. My fingers play your xylophone ribs, stretch across your belly. The streetlights blur through my eyes. Red slips into green slides into yellow slurs into blue bleeds into blood. Your blood stains your thighs and my lips. Glistens black on the sheets. The sidewalk is dirty. My footsteps rattle down the nearly empty streets. Not empty enough. Your eyes look empty and I ask you what you're thinking. Of the ocean, you say; cool, blue, salt water trickling through the crevasses of your body, dribbling into your mouth; I feel your lips travel across my forehead, down my cheek, against my neck. The air is damp. There's a whisper of ice in the breeze. There's a whisper of ice in your breath as you breathe against my neck. My fingers travel the ocean of your body, the seven seas. My eyes tear in the wind. The taillights of a million cars bleed across my face. I feel the knife plunge into my back, below the ribs, upward into my heart. You whisper something, I hear the word love, something stabs me. I count the whores on the street corner. I step out into the street, never see the car that hits me. I suck your tongue. A pretty girl asks for any spare change. I offer her myself but she declines. Water drips from the rooftops, runs down my face. Pretend tears. My fingers trail through your sweat. I cross against the lights, turn a corner, head for home. The rattle of passing cars bounces around inside my head. You whisper in, nibble at my ear. Your words ooze into my skull. You think you know me. My key enters the lock and turns, the lock clicks, I open the door. Your nipples are nails driven into my palms. I don't bother to turn on the light, just take off my clothes and fall into bed. Your thighs are my crown of thorns.