“You never gain weight from a doughnut hole.”
                         – Tori Amos


the smaller the hole, the sharper the whistle / paperclip in power socket / needle eye glowing in the dark / tonight X is no name / X is no callback or trace of outline / tonight O is escape / with distance to be closed on both sides of the loophole / cracks in secrets and façades used to bait the line / like Leonard Cohen said, that’s how the light gets in / peek through and you’ll see the hungry void O / ready to rip through a stranger’s body / in place of X / the subtitles read: [dark portal waits for silent scream] / [a body cocooned in the core of a glass sun] / [threshold braces for breach] / / what to do with knowledge hard-earned through arcane means / shame and pleasure gathered in equal parts / part O and part X / like a reverse-moon casting spells to turn / grainy VHS fantasy into hard reality / smalltown boy arrives in the big city / businessman seeks lunchtime escapades / X is a dare / teasing desires until a tide takes everything under / we give everything we crave a name / so we can summon it when we are weak / and all that we love / is cursed with an expiry date / as if to give and receive is a limited offer / loss can feel more permanent than gain / especially when your absences are in communion with someone else’s advances / O on knees / asking for signs / for a weight to be lifted / or passed on to the next insatiable soul for caretaking / trade void for joy / X on knees with hands raised / praying or protesting or washing the feet of the man who loves you / trade O for X / if love is the answer / the question is the breadcrumb trail to midnight awakening / if X is the answer / the question is whispering a confession into a tree’s hollow / plugging it with mud / and marking it with your silence / answer O only if the circle closes / the question is a book that writes itself / learning how to gain from absence