I Want Intimacy

I want intimacy. I want skin against my skin and fingers in my hair; cold, curled toes against my legs, and the smell of a stranger.

I want nourishment. I want to eat and not feel ugly: textures of flesh against my teeth, and the crackle of bones in bite; I want to feed on something real.

I want grit in my bed: sand stuck between the sheets, dragged back from the beach in pockets and shoes and eye sockets that went without lids and swallowed up the sea.

I want to empty myself into you: a gull, regurgitating till I’m dry. Open wide, take me in; let me escape this skin and reside deep within your stomach.

I want your gastric juices to churn me over and over until I dissolve in the acid burn. Let me seep through the lining into your blood and float freely in your plasma:

Pumping round your body; Feel me tight around your lungs. For every inch of you I yearn; let me sleep, Sleep, silently in your soul, dormant and deep, diluted, dispersed:

I won’t make a sound: You won’t know I’m there: Toes against your legs, fingers in your hair.

Poem: Isla Cowan

Illustration: Irina Turcitu

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