voyeur’s martyrdom

Elio Mikoi 

the woman in black begged me to take her husband / she was a gentle figure of horror / and so i did. / i exist as her husband’s darkest secret / i’m not even back in black yet. / rough bites and cuts / swollen lips and bruised wrists / bodies swelling with pride. / his body is unforgiving, / and i am no priest to forgive such vindication. 

inhabit me, instill jealousy and love within me / his skin leaves me delirious / his hands leave me hungry, breathless. / and i chant in the midnight air, / i will be her. / but nights like this / make my body swell with shapes of darkness / i could not make anyone—myself included—understand. / i am hungry for touch / i am begging for love / i am craving for desire / and i am ashamed to be looked at. 

i exist to show someone their shame / nonetheless, i am embarrassed to be desired, / where the low, aching hum of life’s greatest horrors / has become the base of my despair, where my wings have remained at the greatest length of time. / say shame has left a permanent scarlet mark, / say my disgrace has been the world’s obsession, / say i roam for days until a body meets a body / burn my tongue. / my body is being crucified with the sins of her husband / he made a river of wine out of me / and a pomegranate out of my rib / he took seven pomegranate seeds / and now he can never leave. / she knew he was not pure. / she knew he was tainted. / she his nightly secrets, where his limbs tangled / with the graves of his sins and his blooming lungs. / she called for me to fix him / she demanded for his insides to be shown, / cast in marble, an exhibit to the shame of the world. / she wanted him to be hated, / and i wanted to be wanted. 

he turned my body into a cathedral, him the lone worshiper, / with his knees on the ground, / his lips all over my body. / and he prayed, please keep me safe. / how could i not listen to his prayer, him with scraped knees? / so i drank the wine from the cup of his hand. / here is / where my body was illuminated with blinding light / and five angels came down from where they are / a hand on my throat, a hand on my wrist, / one on my waist, / two on my shoulders, / two on my thighs, / one cupping the back of my head / one in my eyes / and one inside the fleshy heart of my body. / the center of my body / a river of dionysus, / where anyone could drink and their prayers will be heard, / he drank and drank, a parched sinner. / when the last drop brushed over his lips like the last pomegranate seed, / i felt like crying. 

the scene unfolded like a vision in his wife’s dream, and i heard her scream / from miles away, tears of blood flowing, tip-tapping across her cheeks. / you / i want to melt you with the stars until you can no longer withstand your light. / you / i want to fill your river with acid, burn a parched tongue / i want to bite / you / out of the fruit / you / i, cursed to sink without a sound into the sea of my despair. / but darling, dearest, you could never do that / the nightmare that you’ve created. / his hands on my feet, my hands on his, / his hands on my heart, my hands on his eyes, / his hands on my life, and mine on his death / or his hands on my glory, and mine to his shame. / burn me in the stars until i am filled with feverish dust / fill me with acid,  my ribs will remain / bite me from the fruit, my seeds will linger in my heart / sink me into my sea of despair, i am addicted to it.

i have been a homesick angel, i haven’t seen my wings in a while. / but when his hands caressed the scars on my back, / i found my home within his touch. / his sins will become stars, which i will extinguish / my angels will weep, but my river will comfort their hearts / my mouth will burn as i kiss the taint from him. / i never wanted to be the cleanser of their sins. / but i never tried to be untainted, nor pure. / they ask for offerings, they ask for  sacrifice, / they ask for my answer and when i bring my existence / they curse me for my oppugnant decisions. / they only wanted me to exist in a way that comforted them / never mind my unease. / and the only time i felt comfort was in the hands of my sinner. 

if my angels knew that my curse is everywhere / even in the river of my own creation, / where my sinner weeps with forgiveness, endlessly blooming at the centre / doing this with every ounce of desperation, / to be forgiven / to be clean, to be new— / i swept him off of his feet, scraped knees and bloodied achilles’ heels, / his murmured prayers from his lips to mine, / then i stopped feeling raw, blue, half-eaten, rotting from the endless dream to be / loved and wanted / the curtains fell from heaven.

Author Bio: Elio Mikoi is a poet, essayist, author, and frustrated creative in a STEM field. They write queer, myth-drenched prose and poetry where desire, shame, Asian experiences, and devotion move as one. Their poems are published on Instagram (@eliomikoi) and Substack (philtatos).