Every Sex Party is Home to a Prophet

We peel back the black lacquered
door like the scab from a blister.

        Taste the spoiled heat escaping,
        that thick cloud of steam

as it rises from
the iron stairwell. Everyone comes

        and no one goes. I learn new names for myself
        each time. A friend of mine

is pinned against a wall
toward the back. I can’t hear

        his throated song over the throb
        of music, plodding hump of bass,

but I watch as
a stranger’s hand makes quick work

        below the belt.
        Familiar shapes decorate the room,

seizing full fists of fumbled dirty talk,
each word an apple-red ball gag

        snagged between their lips.
        This place becomes cathedral, holy site

to the communion of manhood.
Under these low lights,

        I accept the bread made body,
        and will breed any body,

any man
who will make me more immaculate.

        Everywhere I look, these martyrs:
        their tongues rapt between my teeth,

within my dreams, in the backsplash
of memory. I will them to be the men

        I imagined in the corners
        of my dorm-room fantasies, and when that wasn’t enough,

the men who’s front seats
were a palm spread open to hold

        falling rain, palm spread to punish me,
        or the men who pinned my arms

behind my back for the first time,
and the second time, and every time

        after. The men with past lives, or the men
        with wives at home, the men

who would answer Craigslist postings
with a keen and expedient hunger;

        sharp teeth. A devil’s teeth. Nothing but teeth.
        The men who made me

a martyr myself: see my body now, tied
and bound, the plumage of an arrow protruding

        from my ribcage. What scripture plunges
        us into these black back rooms?

Were we never taught the best ways
to suffer for our creed, our divine art?

        Taught that wanting and hurting
        are the same burning bush,

the same terrifying miracle?
There is a man strapped to a leather cross

        just past the bar. His tears accumulate
        with the dust along the floor. He begs

someone to strike him, make him
repent for the horrors still held

        inside him. No one acts; the few men
        focused enough to notice his kink prefer

he suffer in silence. But when the black hood
goes over his head, I could crawl on my hands

        and knees. I could run my tongue
        across his calloused feet, a messiah

washing the most liable of sinners.
Is that what would save me?

        Redemption comes in our vanity
        says a man with stars strung in constellation

across his collarbone. He measures his next dose
when his alarm rings, and with a tightening throat

        gives into desire, the blunt force of its fever.
        Every God in history has demanded

some form of sacrifice, be it
livestock, children, whole cities and nations. Why

        should we be any different tonight?
        Why should we escape the burden of choice?

My eyes – shut fire curtains,
muscle tightening against the pain.

        The pain. The pain. The pain
        that can erase all the ways I’ve lived before now.

We do what we must to reclaim the
sacredness of our flesh, these blooming apertures;

        feel what was stolen from us
        in those years where we went tongueless,

nameless, our stomachs but a nest
for future carnality. In the club’s bathroom I hear

        the shower of piss striking a metal trough,
        I hear a man drink this blessed wine in gasps

before a chorus of saints, I hear a hand slam
against a stall door, I hear the echo of one

        body betraying another, hear
        the gutted prayers and the groan

of my own pearly gates, open wide
for this midnight redeemer.

        There is no past here, which must mean
        there is no future, only the many flushed faces of now.

A hand around my throat.
I must take what I’m given.

        With enough pressure,
        I become a prophet for those who will listen:

men huddled in their corners, watching
as my flesh cathedrals for another.

        Well after midnight, I see him:
        a ghost from years before,

neither of us able to look each other in the eye.
Even if we’ve pulled

        each other apart; even if our
        shared entrails have been offered

to the ease of a squealing king bed;
even if my fingers have filled

        his mouth and begged him to
        scream out a name, any name,

we don’t say a word
as we collide in the dark.

        No, perhaps we do not need words
        to give name to our savior’s bounties;

isn’t that what faith is, after all?
The crash of our limbs, the rush

        of believing we’ll find this Edenous pleasure
        night after night, so long as the city remains.

Who am I, pillar of flesh, vessel
of sweat and salt, to deny such a faith?