Society craves isolation; it requires it. Man is not proficient enough if man is always aching for another. Companies preach all they want about team building, yet they pluck out each one of us and plant us in cubicles dusted in ashy gray, tasting of regret and longing, and hope that by 5 PM sharp, one fades away into that wall. They commend individualism when one is creating a project, not when one’s project is themselves. Governments hold their breath for the fiftieth person to walk into a room before they smack a request for a permit on your front and tell you to disperse. Yes, man wants to be a social animal. No, man may not be one. Late-stage capitalism decrees as much. Truth is, loneliness sells. You get an employee, you breed into them fear of authority and respect for the soul-stripping madness that is a 9-to-5, you teach them work culture, you make sure that work haunts their breaks, haunts their commutes back home, haunts their holidays, haunts their PTO. Thus, they do your...
I want to be emaciated, not of flesh but of need. My hands are so cold. I keep wondering if they will ever learn warmth, as if warmth were something earned, something the body could retain. Everywhere you touch me, my skin ignites. Flames, sudden and violent, as if I mistake burning for salvation. I confuse your warmth with interest, with care, with something that belongs to me. But it doesn’t. It never did. It is warmth I borrow, pressed briefly against my chest before it fades. Intimacy gives the illusion of belonging. It tells me I am held when I am only close. Each kiss feels like survival, like I’m siphoning life from your mouth to nourish what’s starving in me. When it fails, when nothing inside me wakes up, I kiss you again, believing insistence might become resurrection. You touch me and the desire to disappear loosens. This is easier than repairing what’s broken. For a moment, the void quiets. For a moment, I hate myself less. When our fingers intertwine, I want you endlessly....