A Calloused Smile
I asked my brother to burn me with a smile, the heated tip of a lighter burning the flesh on my forearm to create a calloused expression forever marked on me by scarred skin; a twisted smile reminding me of a burning by a partner by a friend by a Lover or the self, the smile remaining an extension of my brother— my will imposed through he— the smile scarring my body and its attempt to heal from first-degree burns, burns from a lighter I asked my brother to press in my skin igniting whatever depravity or genius laid dormant there, under a drunken veil. I would blackout later that night, too, leaving him to wander the light-soaked streets of Paris with now bygone friends the smile bubbling above the skin, calloused flesh forming in a stupor.
The vinyl keeps on spinnin’.
in paradiso, ego sum