Part I: What Lies
A blazed misbehaving
I am wrought (from behind).
And I’m always craving
in thought and in mind.
Insane sound of drums
as the thrusts leave me burned.
The pain always comes
as the lust is returned.
And if pleasure deserts me
then why should I screw?
If pleasure does hurt me
then what should I do?
If skin is conditioned
to make one afraid…
Then I am positioned
to make me unmade…
Yet if my betrayal
by my circumstance
is meant by portrayal
to cleave from the dance
then I will choose pain
for as long as I dare…
In this game of chance
I’ll try not to be scared.
Part II: The Truth Beneath
My primary protective barrier
has been decimated by genetic anomalies.
Color bleeding out of me slowly,
imperceptibly,
across time and place.
My Dorian Gray reflection
is just as exorbitant, just as damned,
if far less immortal (and even less fictional),
leaving me to ponder quotes by Natalie Merchant
& various Hellraiser sequels.
My pale epidermis keeps people
from noticing what is apparent
in other darker shades
of the same ravaged organ…
I am understandably less daunted
by my own nearly invisible changes in tone.
It is the texture which fascinates
and at times, terrifies me.
The rough skin made smooth, taut,
and somehow stretched to the point of near tearing,
like a molting humanoid creature,
unable to break free…
making friction far more painful
than anyone would ever guess
when merely glancing
at my beautifully camouflaged exterior.
The secret stroking of flames and flesh
combined in the perfect union of sex
and of power: that harmony, that balance
forever disrupted, imbalanced
by vicious circumstances I’ve never dared express,
and which have never been freely mirrored
to my careful, guarded attention.
The youth that so many gratefully mistake me for
is a cruel trick of tegument
which grants me favor
at a terrible cost that I,
who have lived with it long enough to have surely known better,
am only just beginning to comprehend.
Written by Jason Wright
September 11, 2026