I originally wrote this during the spring of 1997. I was trying to come to terms with what was going on inside of me. I later submitted it to my Advanced Creative Writing class because I hadn’t turned in anything for a few weeks. It was very personal, and hard for me to share at the time. But I’d like to share it now as a companion piece to the column which I wrote earlier today. 

 

 

The Midnight Hour

 

It’s cold, and sleep beckons me from beneath the pillows. But tomorrow is mere hours away, and if I should retire, the morning spirits would keep me from my silent masochism. Just a few breaths until I can see you again, before I must put on a mask of mere friendship and general well-being. Just a spin of the cosmos until I can drink in again the Chambord of your smile and lose my sight in the twinkling of your eyes.

Nicotine eats away at my throat and Depression wraps me up snug in her hand-crafted pioneer quilt. She’s been my true love since before I ever drew myself close to another. Just an affair, but I’ve become too intimate with her lying whispers in the night. And then, like now, in my moments of doubt of your worth, she beckons me to Self-Pity- her garden home of skunk cabbage- where I am hers again.

Her sister, Suicide, joins the orgy with her lover, Hatred. They lay me back into the stink of Self-Pity, and it begins. I am naked before them, and the first… touch… is the same as the last. A cold shiver, as my mistress arouses me from Morpheic gaiety, caressing my spirit totem. The peacock rolls her eyes and leaves me to pursue melancholia. An errant whisper evaporates when the Lady Razorblade kisses up and down the length of my essence and Fury engulfs me in his erotic thrall.

Help me, my love! as Depression mounts my virgin love and takes from me the gift I sought to give to you. Hatred massages the knotting in my spinal column with his homophobic enema. It burns a bit at first, but O! a gasp of pleasure escapes my lips, and I know that I am theirs.

In a gentle rocking, I lose myself in passion and call Suicide from her sister’s heaving bosom, to begin whispering those truths into my ear with her tongue and teeth. Her hands seek my nipples with the needles in her eyes, and sew into my flesh two copper bands. ‘You won’t feel a thing,’ she says as I throw my head back in ecstasy. Her fingers loop through the rings a rusted barbed wire and she pulls me toward her soft mouth.

A kiss. Simple as two loves exchanging vows by moonlight, but somehow more romantic. She whispers the name of the first I ever loved, and I know that she is better than Heather could ever have become since that ignorant third-grade bliss. The look of contempt eases Hatred’s passage in even more, as he penetrates me all the way up to last night’s cheeseburgers. But they know I want it.

Depression slaps me in the face and tears me back to her. Our chests collide, and the wire cuts her deep as well. God, Crys. Help me!

She fingers her wound while riding me like a battered spacecraft, then licks the blood from my chest. Her tongue burns in your face between our wedding rings, and she retracts the forked whip to tell me that I am now hers as well.

The bile rises in my throat like understanding. All the pot, all the acid, the cigarettes, bourbon, and dark dreams pushed down out of sight. What was sweet is now sour in my mouth, and the rape progresses further. I cannot leave. I still love them. All three of them. I came here of my own free will, and even if I could leave, there’s nowhere else for me to go.

Hatred comes, and I feel his seed deep within my gut. He pulls out of me, and the blood, semen, and shit slide out like afterbirth.

Depression lays me back now, and holds my arms down against the nettles of the headboard. I am helpless. I gave myself to her, and now it is not my pleasure to fulfill, but hers. Climbing me like a tree, and descending like and escalator, the void of her seeks for me to fill. Her sister smears her juices over my eyes and then into my open wound.

Suicide feeds Depression the product of her labors, and the elevator cable is snapped. From the eighty-third floor, she begins a freefall to my pelvis. Hatred smiles and watches me, sustaining Suicide until it is her turn. Depression claws her nails into my shoulder blades and fucks me no more.

It’s now or never. Crys? Crys? Take my hand… please… help me.

But my pleas are answered only with your smile of product innocence. You cannot help me. Only a few more hours, but you cannot help me.

I stand now, alone, shivering, and clothed only in the sweat, blood, and come of my violation. Like shadows, Depression and Hatred slink away. Yet Suicide remains. Her smile has not faded, and when she points to my scarred torso, she merely laughs.

Silence.

’Come a little closer.’

When I look at her, I feel only my nakedness.

’Don’t be afraid, no one’s ever complained.’

Despite myself, I rolled my eyes: Suicide was a slut.

‘Everyone’s gone now, dear, and we can be alone.’

No, the word sinks in the quiet like quicksand.

I’m so tired. I miss you, Crys.

Suicide’s blue eyes stare hard. Crys or her. Crys is the chance, she is the sure thing.

God, I’m tired, Crys.

The clock begins to tick again at 3 a.m. I’m back in bed, still alone. I cannot feel what I used to feel for you, but the sun is not yet out. When it rises, these cold toes will thaw, and the dark will not seem as bright.

 ©1997, 2000, 2015 Tex Batmart