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poems are all “I want to crack open your rib cage”
and the girls are like “step on me”
but this is not coy: I can think of nothing more intimate than being tortured to death.
tell me where you want to cut me and I’ll serve myself up
with stars in my eyes; show me your throat
and I’ll beat you blue. freaks
do it better, get wet with offal
and run right into open jaws.
freaks need it, like a brand, like the feeling on your skin
when you want to touch the burn and your stomach goes hot and sick.

pain scatters meaning. the world hurts you and doesn’t give a shit. but not this: not the sadist’s itching teeth, not the wounds you show and probe, eagerly.

you want to be a fire burning in beloved hands.
you want reality to touch as it should
and suck cock deeper than god will allow, swallowing everything
you can’t swallow

so no more playing pretty; no more contortion tricks
no more coming with your head on the ceiling and
your past in the sheets.
stop falling down at their heels
beaten, skinned and bleeding, begging
prostrate and crawling to be heard
if they don’t know what it is to love a wound
like a dog with a bone

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quinn milton (They/ze/he)
quinn milton is a multidisciplinary artist and game designer based in Philadelphia. their subjects are queer dys/utopias, monsters, and erotic horror.