halfway house

RACHEL RABBIT WHITE

we’ve got like an hour

the day wants, she wants us 
up against her mouth

I want it inside 
this time it's vital,
make me fluent 

sublimate the hotel suite
into a house of god

ceiling called to sky 
free as the sound 
soon you’ll be on givenchy and caviar
a fountain of light and air

the angels didn’t recognize you by name

the moment blind, intensified
only knew you as fuck, as god, as yes

time’s heavy endowment, easy prison dick, romeo
banished, profane, rapture, the easy divine of sin
cascade
between  
unashamed sex &
sex with shame, baby
that’s fragility

I demand an infinite excess
when nature herself is violent

rain and conceive, the angels believe it

you’re so good, you’re so good, you’re so fucking good

falling from a pair of arms

if we’re all born to die, like juliet’s father said
semen, I guess, is a sort of poison

you can’t play the same song forever
but for now, you can start it over 

wine quivers in daylight
someone watches the phone
my will is damp

you hold me in bed 
until you don’t 

“I did something bad, so I had to go away for a long time,” you say
on a call we both know is monitored

we both know 
having done nothing wrong 
can last for miles & years
before blending in

“maybe god is giving me something good, after all this…” 

the day tears away 
but something of you, true in true
by vastness or extent
remains unstill, uncontained

the night is a drunk
I feel each slip
slip

I search “how to have patience”
and close the article before I finish it

PARADISE

RACHEL RABBIT WHITE

you thought it was totally fine that I fucked a crucifix
feeling, as you did, that jesus would totally get it

jesus, the human being that he was and what he gave to the world and how it got corrupted,
terrible, through no fault of his own

who knows what happens during sex

sometimes you're on your third life
sometimes we’re a first incarnation
or I’m on eighth, as if there are eight of me

the chaos of the family will never end
I let it move, interpretively

arch, coccyx, four fingers below the navel
I can’t blame anyone 
spit-stroking blisters
at that time there were three jesuses
I was pulling out endless black splinters

this is how conceit is made
this is how BDSM colonic yoga cults are formed
I see it clearly

what’s broken is broken
you have to live with it

if offerings are made
I belong to want

through someone else’s childhood
vanishing, disintegrating, evaporating in black neon 

either I have or I have nothing
familial

what’s broken
is broken

you say you wish I wasn’t so heavy
but I don’t have a single thought 

except maybe I want the word semen to have more syllables
like vulgarity mixed with sorrow
viscosity, nocturnal, dissociative

don’t you agree it’s beautiful
to see vulgarity mixed with sorrow
I tip my legs in the air to keep it 
what it means to be in a perfect state

but isn’t goodness only a reflection of evil?

I try you 
with nothing but feeling
until dawn

in touch, you touch violence 
in me, thank you, thank you
for touching me

I’d forgive almost anyone, 
I just know it

fantasy, memory, synthesis, the air is perilous
how a scene can eat you entirely
like wall to wall carpeting
I like the feeling of digging my toes
into almost anything

say you will die fucking me if we keep this up

I pour you a drink
a bracelet breaks

I do black out from time to time

when my mouth holds your jaw 
when grabbed by root or tail

RACHEL RABBIT WHITE is the author of Porn Carnival, a collection of poetry which has been recently re-released as an extended version: Porn Carnival: The Paradise Edition (Wonder Books.) She currently lives in Mississippi with her fiance and cat. You can find her on Instagram @rachelrabbitwhite and on twitter @rabbitwhite

Originally published March 2021 in poiesis 2.1 by w the trees.