Bedtime Story | Hedone | Glyph
BEDTIME STORY
Sensing the bough’s break I’d thrown myself trustingly into the wind
Happy thoughts— you can fly, you can fly
Turns out Tinkerbell was full of shit so I began growing down
After the fall I’d spend mornings picking thorns from my crown of messy
tangled hair & end my days sucking on bleeding thumbs
Hard to differentiate time— sun rarely shined through
the overbearing & impenetrably thick canopy
Desire would find me in this long night— my mouth quivering to a cry
She’d still my bottom lip between her teeth & direct
my attention with the pull of her gentle bite
Close your eyes, honey
and follow me
I know my way around the dark
That’s how I (be)came— a child of Desire
Breastfed
she taught me kink is a cradle when bending you towards your own will
Lust is a lullaby when sung tenderly and sweetly in your ear &
Pussy is a goddess when prayed to in tongues on bended knee
baptizing you in her holiest water— yes
Desire has always been
the brightest luminary in my night sky &
as she covers me in her weightless blanket
the past leans forward &
kisses the present in a prayer:
Goodnight moon— I sigh
That’s a good girl— she whispers back
HEDONE
As a kid I touched everything with the tip of my tongue
Clouds were cotton candy & marshmallows tasted like kisses
Perhaps that’s why, an adult,
I might lick you to know you’re mine
Frustration bullies me on the back of my tongue
relentlessly bearing down, demanding resistance while locking eyes
Holding this hand of opposition I forcibly submit her
forward, seductively rolling each finger around the tip of my tongue
I eat for pleasure
Wringing every drop of ecstasy from your lust-drenched fate,
scraping my teeth against the bone of your body’s ability to release
the weight of existence as pleasure—
cum-nursed,
bliss-fed,
eyes-glazing,
wiping my chin—
Oh, please don’t stop
feeding me
I’m starving
GLYPH
All artists are scab pickers— she thinks,
washing dried blood from her nails
Scars, once pervasive musings—
hand-picked and repeatedly fingered
She watches herself bleed
to recognize the movement
of pain
Traces of iron and plasma
wanton to leave a mark
Corporeal plagiarism
borrowed consciousness from pain’s diaspora
The Great Suffering
bleeding new existential lexicons
Enter the next generation of authors
Lindsey Bryant (she/her) is a professional daydreamer, age 40, living and working on a small farm in Alaska with her wife (Meghan) and Old English Sheepdog (Chloe). Follow Lindsey on Twitter @lindseyleighllb.