<h2><center>origin of love</center></h2><center><i>Sophia de Augustine</i></center><center>
I will fear no evil-
for you are [[with me.->1]]</center>
<center>[[Content Warnings]]</center><blockquote><i>origin of love</i> contains text-based portrayals of the following:
- Cannibalism
- Gore, injuries, violence
- Ecclesiastical content
- Consensual explicit sexual encounters</blockquote><center>[[RETURN->START]]</center>glory be
to the body
splayed beneath me.
a man is a <<button "cathedral">>
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all stained glass martyr-eyes
<<button "fractured">>
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<</button>> into a thousand
scintillating points of <<button "light.">>
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pulsation, rumination
how the light lingers
in the soft hollows
carved open to receive
to be
[[touched]]and you love this man,
(you really do)
only you love him the way
a wound bays for the knife
a raw socket misses the tooth
restless tongue probing
<<button "cavernous ache.">>
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he handles you like <<button "a holy relic">>
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hands shaking, overcome
puncture wound sharp-
sudden
tongue laving <<button "worship">>
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swallowing
consumption as
the highest form of
[[devotion]]under dawn’s soft light
the soft contours of his body
are well charted <<button "cartography">>
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the gentle rise and fall of his chest
(how he snores a little as he sleeps)
his heartbeat
quickened
urgent
[[alive]]you are aflame
with open mouthed wanting
all hungry need
every constituent atom
in dizzying tailspin
electron clouds dense with <<button "possibility">>
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and clouded by desire
cataclysmic collision
conflagration
not a pillar of salt
but [[torrential holy fire.]]
the conjured phantasm of his body:
eyes dark, pupils blown
hair tousled, mouth parted
voice soft with <<button "need">>
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(a fond kiss pressed to his hip)
the shy slip of blankets revealing
the junction of his legs
split asunder
hiked over your shoulder
[[devoured]]for the anniversary of your wedding:
digging through archaeological sites
ripping apart historical records
piecing together changed geography
from records of war, <<button "broken household pottery">>
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between the place they buried the working dogs
and the iron spoke of a wheel
he saw break down, notched where his knife was honed
in long rasping strokes
you found where [[his home once stood.]]you wanted to give him
something of his life back-
something more than blood spray
across fallow fields
body felled like a tree remembering <<button "the axe">>
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the night that he died
the night that he was [[born again.]]your hand on his chest:
<i>a little part of your hometown’s still with you</i>
<i>you carry it in your heart.</i>
<i><i>and i am here with you</i>
<i>and things have changed</i>
<i>yet things are the same</i>
<i>because you’re here</i>
<i>with someone who loves you.</i>
<center>[[23:4->START]]</center>he brings you to your knees
desperate to touch, to taste
one firm hand guiding you
the honeycombed hexagons
of confessional pressed into
your inner thighs.you know him inside and out:
the downy softness of his skin,
how it splits beneath the razor’s edge
the slip and roil of flesh
the wet gleaming
heatmoonlight slides over his skin
like filmy lace, like sheer nylons
the elastic give and snap
your husband laid bare
beneath your sharp clawsin another lifetime
where the blight didn’t take root
you would have ached for him all your life
without a name for that loss.uncertain, at first
growing in confidence
until he pinions you beneath him
breathless, hard
like a butterfly skewered
into florist's foam.osculating curves,
lapping blessed wine
off of your sacrilegious body
the crunch of cartilage
the breaking of bone
marrow melting over his tongue
like communion.your lover defines himself through your touch:
here is his hip, held gently
there is the bracket of his legs
wrapped around your waist
the inside of his thighs
dug into with clumsy ardor
the unmaking of a man, abloom with radiating heat
eyes screwed shut in pleasure
hands trembling uncontrollably
nails scratching angry red furrowsyou can walk into any room
and you only have eyes for him.
he is the axiom around
which your world revolves
the foundation, bedrock
unshakeable faithbefore him,
you were unmoored in oceanic blue
set adrift on the waves
he is the lighthouse
beacon beckoning you to shore.moving house is a post mortem examination
of the anatomy of a household
discarding the chaff
and picking through for the choice bits.
you still have his victorian locket:
a filigree heart, adorned with a dahlia:
everlasting love, a lifelong commitment.the culprit:
decimated,
no litanies
no elegies
no dirges
obliterated
from history.