Sincerity is better than seriousness, for who wants to be loved gravely?
          —Watts¹

                    i.

Curators of spotlights turn them on only
in those hearth-warmed moments when what we want burns
more than radiators for a pulse that starts
fires in the dark once laughter departs. Heat falls

apart the way a secret we think we need
does in the ashen palms we rub against each
other’s passion-starved touches. Sinking into
pockets—stones longing to rise above what faults

make us crawl—these so-called sins we sink in—these
parables we tell our Selves will work for us
all since faith didn’t care to heal her lonely—
are not worth letting trouble these hearts of ours.

Few fevers should ever be starved what we seek
since desire feeds love in the first place its spark.

                    ii.

Stop eroticizing repression. What you
want is for having. Pyre a torch on a mind
suffering. Shine insight on why being loved
is defiant. Is Neo-Puritan now

the new Pagan? Since when is self-denial
rebellion? What CEO’s world-view are you
blindly buying into & not deconstructing?
Is a fear of pleasure your religion’s vow?

Extinction your intention? This much is true:
porn is the crowd’s ritualization of
sex, its sweaty offerings funding what proof
of god’s existence happens next—which is what

a fantasy’s for: realization—moved
that if we can dream it, we can wake up touched.

__________
¹Alan Watts, “[Chapter] Five[:] So What?” of The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, published at New York by Vintage Books in 1989; page 127.