Dance of Demons
moocowinthecity Subject: Dance of Demons
Date: Friday 10/27/06 11:18:00 PM
Tags: writings: poetry
Dance of Demons
Matan Ar’ye Schwartz
As the lights grow dim, good little boys head home to lay their head on their strong boyfriends chest as they feel safe behind white picket fences/getting up each morning just so they can exist: pay the rent so they can have a place to sleep before they get up to work again, a process with no end in sight.
Walking with a purpose and on a mission, my coat billows in the wind as this crimson sky – so forboading, indiciates terror ahead and terror behind and a voice inside of me is saying “don’t you think you should be in bed/don’t you want to be innocent” and I say to myself “I’d rather be jaded, than naive” and the doubt creeps inside my head “what if he doesn’t show up, what if you walk the streets, alone again tonight…what if everone’s right and you’ll never make it” and I push the thoughts out of my head. If he has a problem with it, then fuck it and fuck him we’re doing this once and for all tonight:either way he’s going to have to make a choice.
Hookers, thieves and drug addicts with lines down their arms looking for a fix/cocaine being snorted from the bathroom counters and lewd acts of humanity being performed in the stalls/skulls and bones hanging from the ceiling…a tasteful decorating job and it seems that everyone’s out tonight as I see the latest in whips and chains being demonstrated by the Dominatrix on her husband, suspended in the cage in the corner in this straight bastion/this heterosexual corner of safety, the last place someone would think is a ‘safe place’ as screams fill the night and the D.J. cues up the nights fare.
People who are new to this hole-in-the-wall club look at me like I don’t fit in and they sneer because I’m in jeans, cute sneakers and a smart shirt with a witty saying looking rather gay…preppy even, as men who haunt children under their beds and are the guys that go bump in the night come up to me with earings and bullrings, top hats and tattoos and as the new club goers are expecting a fight all they hear are “hey how you doing?” and I respond “Doing well, oh you look cute, is that a new tattoo?” as these straight men flex for me and the new club goers just don’t know how to respond as I make the rounds and take out a ciggarette and three guys reach into give me a light/one comes up behind and rubs my shoulders and says “I love you…you know in a straight way…” and I grin and say “I know” expecting to be loved in a Gay way later tonight by someone else if all goes right and expecting to find some loving if it doesn’t.
A side of me that even my closest of friends haven’t seen…at a hideaway I run to, when I just need to get away from everyone who knows me outside of these few walls of this club where demons dance and angels tread with care as people remember their carnal history, but this night is different:this night I made a phone call and invited someone to meet me in this sixth layer of hell/a lover and an even older enemy. As I wait for him to arrive, I order my usual Guinness and reflect back to when I was a child and my friends parents would tell their children to behave and they turn to me and say “play safe” and I would reply “always.”
You can paint over a zebra with white paint but it doesn’t mean you’ve removed his stripes:there’s plenty of stripes on my body to remind me of poor choices made and there’s plenty of scars to remind me of my past life/who I was and who I used to be and who I am tonight and who I hope to be if I’m alive when the sun rises tomorrow while dawn paints the sky with her rose red finger tips and the charriot of fire comes to life, because you never know what might happen in the next few seconds of life:live each moment as if it’s your last chance and dance as if no one’s watching/move your body like it’s the last time you’re ever going to feel another human brushing up against your skin and kiss like it’s your first time and like it’s your last and drink from the cup of life for in wine is truth.
Breaking my reflective introspection I see you enter as the bouncer stands up and isn’ t nearly as tall as you as he takes your cash – you with your six foot four frame and faithful fifth limb in perfect proportion waiting to rise. Wearing a long black coat, and aviators with a tight black wife beater underneath your duster and jeans packing enough heat to raise some hell tonight, you catch my eye and I remain seated on these couches which once belonged in a parlor in a brothel that was run by a woman of the night/a mistress of respect, I cross my legs and let you approach me…defiance and anger in my eyes/going against the natural order of things.
Lights flashing behind you:music playing as demons dance in gogo cages:my heartrate quickens:you’ve been working out as you shed your second skin I see the definition in your tanned shoulders and your arms and your six pack attempting to escape from the wifebeater you’ve got on and I’m ready to get on and get off as I look at your jeans flaring out at the bottom with a thick black leather belt circling your waist looking at myself in the reflection of the aviators you’re sporting as you reach down and lift me by my chin and force me to stand to greet you as you grab my mouth, bend down to my five foot five frame and insert your tongue and lock lips with me:the air escapes and I can’t breathe as drugs that can’t be manufactured outside of the human body come rushing through me as you shove me down on the couch and come down with a crash: straddling me/pinning my shoulders back with your massive arms as your crotch holds my lap down steadily.
Looking around at the clientelle you’re not normally used to seeing at the club you run, you question “why here” and I look up at you and reply “I wanted to do this without the judgement of wandering eyes” and you say to me “shut up bitch and listen” – apparently your feeling more dominant than usual tonight, so I close my mouth to give you a chance to speak and you lean in and whisper “I’m sorry…come back home with me…I’ll love you like the first time we met, I’ll feel you like I’ve never felt you before and I’ll fuck you until your eyes roll back into your head and I promise I’ll be faithful…never again, God…neer again…I’ve never been this alone before…”
I can feel myself beginning to rise as I smell the vodka he pregamed on and the Marlboro lights on his breathe and the stubble rubbing up against my cheek and I try to shift around to handle my package and adjust my position, but you shove me down harder and don’t let me move, and I can see a stream of tears running down from the corner of your eyes/now understanding why you’re wearing the aviators you’ve donned tonight; and I should have listened to my personal trainer and went for muscle instead of thin: and I can see you getting tense as you look at me through mirrored glasses because tonight’s going to be the end and it’s going to be a beginning.
We hold this stare as the world moves around without us as we’ve transplanted ourselves into this locked position of domminace and submission but without anyone knowing who’s actually in control of this situation; and out of the corner of my eye I see my friend the bouncer about to move in to what he thinks is a hostile situation between a stranger and I hear “do you promise to never leave me again” escape from mouth as my heart is finally getting to speak and shutting the logical side of my brain out and as the tears hit the stubble of his cheek and I can smell his cologne rising off the heat of his defined/shaved chest he manages to get out “Yes” as he lifts me into an embrace off the ground and within his arms I’ve once again found home, as we dance the hours away we make our way to our car as the sun begins to rise over this industrial wasteland of a city and as dawn breaks I know…
I’m alive.