Kink
Levi ties me to the bed and all weekend we watch every god-awful movie she wants. Her pick—my body.
She lays the plot out on my belly, traces every character arc up my spine. Kisses me at the credit scene (and only the credit scene).
I learn to survive on popcorn and spit—her bodily excess is mostly water anyway, and salt. Tiny bits of seaweed left stuck in my teeth afterward. If she’s kind, she’ll pick them out with her fingers—every long green tendril. When the final Fin plays, she unravels the rope, rubs aloe on my purple wrists. Asks if I want another marathon, and all I can say is yes, and when.
Point Break
We’re fighting when Levi says she’d rather fuck a machine than me. I throw a vibrating dildo across the room, hear it slam into the wall with a wet thump. Do it then.
I think I’m still scared any argument could be the end—but sometimes Levi just wants entertainment. An adrenaline junkie, something good to get the blood pressure rising.
Now she’s smiling, tries to pull me close despite the sting still in our throats. In this moment, I wonder if I’m the airplane and she’s jumping out—
Or maybe she’s the parachute, the only thing keeping us alive.
Or we’re both just the salt, and the acid, burning away everything inside just to keep kissing a little longer.
Fall
Light maw opening—onyx strike. Levi takes a falling star for an earring. I want to give her something pretty that doesn’t burn but every wound glimmers—blood saliva, heartbeat juice. Bile that hardens to stone. I promise her another ring and with it, she takes a finger—blesses me with her rough forked tongue. I ask how a fish can be so feline and she just meows, slurping another knuckle down her throat.
Eli V. Rahm (they/them) is a queer poet from Virginia. Eli is the recipient of the 2023 Mary Roberts Rinehart Poetry Award and the 2020 Joseph A. Lohman III Award in Poetry. Their work is featured or forthcoming in Passages North, Bellingham Review, Barren, The Academy of American Poets, Portland Review, Feral, among others. You can find them tweeting about horror films and strange animals @dinodysphoria.