JOSHUA BARNES

Do I Deserve to be Wanted?

I stand on the strobing dance floor, a spectacle of stillness surrounded by live wires arcing in the storm.

Before AIDS, this bar was a playground for sex, after AIDS, this bar is a playground for sex.

Except he plays at violence. He touches my scar and notices me shy away. He lingers there anyway.

He says something in my ear that I can’t hear, his voice wet and hot. This is a rehearsal for what I thought I wanted, as if he were a new book, published on a Tuesday, with my name on the jacket.