I love the way you smell,
The way you taste of sweat and leather, and I love the way your hands feel on my body,
The way they take me,
The way they bleed me.
 
I love the way the blood hits the wall and splatters like cooking grease as the whip bears down against the soft ivory flesh of my back. 
 

Again comes the pain,
And then harder,
And then again.
 
There is no humility in it,
No sin,
No salvation,
And no acquittal.
 
I am an addict.
 
Had written it twelve times in that blood on the wall.
 
Addict, addict, addict …
 
Addicted to the pain,
Addicted to the shame,
Addicted to all the whitewashed tears that fell like clots of blood upon the paper when there were no more lonely words to write in the darkness.
 
I love you,
The way your flesh rots my soul,
The way your bones waste me.
 
I love your shadow,
And the gravestone you took me on the very first time we met.

By Cheryl Anne Gardner