[Converge Worlds] a poem

Don’t black out,
don’t pass out;
It’ll end our night,
pass hours into black ends,
when our sobriety returns us to
the estranged;
A mocha latte grande Starbucks mistress
drunkenly paired with a post-modern man,
who takes your panties & leaves your Prada


Dontrell Lovet't
from, [If It Be You]

Liquid Latex

Theater you don't enjoy,
Being the theatre is your thing,
touches of the savage & abberant
flirts with titillating scenes

An entire act can be played out
on top of you, in you, all over you,
stains from drained urethras
tears from pleasure invoke
in nights otherwise joyless

Tell me what you want,
then I'll give you all wants
& let you borrow some of my
very own,
lay test to your flesh in
the chronic quest all muses
must suffer.

Dontrell Lovet't

from, [Blotted Etches]

[The Questionable You] a poem

Your walls are suspiciously relaxed
for a practical woman
for me,
for me to ask for more,
would be a gluttonous affair
a man can get by with just that
If indeed a man with the extraordinary taste
for acquired pleasures


Dontrell Lovet't
from, [If It Be You]

[Wealth & Health] a poem

You can toss your curvaceousness
up to the freshman-fifteen;
A standing ovation,
I offer in response to adoration,
to you,
coke-bottle bottom
& figure-eight a-great,
flat affect risen with a
lip-speared peck


Dontrell Lovet't
from, [If It Be You]

[Synthesis of the Naked Body] a short story

Synthesis of the Naked Body

Nothing becomes unless it holds an underlining substance, marvel. A story that holds no moral, a novel with no plot; all predicates itself, its being and becoming on the subsidy of exhumation.

This occurs to me after I encounter by incidence a woman who comes simply to gratify her hunger. I dream then, dream instantly, fall back onto a solid cloud and take form of it.

-but even in this enchanted age, when we know the cruelties of love, it is sought as the darkness that conceals a hideous imp awaiting pounce. The temporary derangement of deep abysmal burrowing, I take to, without a moment's doubt, the bottom holds the hoard of impalement.

Her name was Alexie.

She has an inherent tan to her skin, a texture of exotic tint, her eyes were that of the most feminine feline, dark and haunting, piercing even, as though they could know sadness and glee interchangeable in one bat of the eye to the next. Her smile one must admit is a disarming one, becalming even the most raging sea. I could not recollect nor reckon in that moment, as I could not remember anything, as to when the last time a smile possessed me into reverie.

Who was this quintessential being of feminine being? Where had she derived and who was the man calm at rest every night who held her tightly?

She became the muse to a day that was museless, scarce and snowy and this man who spoke for her had suddenly become my arch nemesis who I'd gladly skin alive to be in his place next to her.

This is the subversive action, the opiate inhalation, laudanum ingestion, irrational deafness upon deft monotones, the laudatory monograph features upon the tongue ring for oral stimulus. The turn and smile as she walks away says that she too has taken on the rhythm of mystery, of curious arousal. The trial and error of which I desire to embark is the same odyssey undertaken by Miller and Nin, by Abelard and Heloise, a pretentious coitus interruptus upon the curvature of her spine.

Let it be known that this world is the womb and I, a fetus that must grow and develop gradually, consistently, else be engirdled in calcification as the lithopedian. Gladly I will surrender my growth in the Euclidean for the growth upon her flesh. Let it be known that I will rise upon her as the braille that will rise when first my fingertips sweeps against her skin as the sprinkle to the rising tide. Let it be known that I am another phalanges upon her, a parasitic twin with whom nourishes from the arteries, the veins, the capillaries, the sinuses of what she is to the dream. And of this dream, the unparalleled, asymmetric, askew, malformed, abstruse and obtuse meridian, she flutters with the black canaries into a desolate, glowing winter night where the trees lean wearily in their decrepit condemnation, their branches chafing broken sonnets, fallen hymns from bygone song. Therein obsession is a delirium of transitory genius, a beggar quoted by no one upon the abandoned and poverty-stricken earth. Let this dream relapse, reenact itself in a broken language, a cipher, trick of mind and light, a polyp in the fascia only removed upon the full step from this life. Let translation between she and I coexist with a vast electricity, until such times the lights burn bright, then out and all that is left is the synthesis of our naked body.

Dontrell Lovet't

[Philosophy in the Bedroom] Sex to the Social Revolution

If you are familiar with the Marquis de Sade, the controversial writer and figure of the early 1700's forward, whose very acts and deviancy coined the term "Sadism," or sexual pleasure derived from the pain and humiliation of others, then it doesn't make you an exception to the zenith of depravity that stemmed from his mind.

The 1795 [Philosophy in the Boudoir] was once counted out and banned as pure obscenity but is now hailed by those who are quite comfortable and close to their own sexual compulsion as more of a social revolution. In the book, de Sade's philosophy is entangled in libertinism, the lifestyle, which applied effectively and without a second-consideration, would save the whole of France from the ruling Monarchy.

Along with an embrace of the libertine lifestyle, too, atheism  must be embraced and excluded anything else representing the moral fabric spun by any overbearing society's tyrannical reign. Within this social defiance, de Sade's own life, the trials and commitments he faced in dungeons can be seen. He states that if a crime is committed while in the course of seeking pleasure, then that crime shouldn't be punished, a more wishful thinking on his part, because had it been in effect, de Sade would never have been imprisoned for the various and numerous sexual and violent offenses which were committed in due course of his own sexual climates.

If anything can be taken from [Philosophy in the Bedroom] is the theory that any government, past ruling or currently presiding, were to have come into accounts of the text, the sex would be the least of their threats, rather the complete renouncing of religion and the monarchy, which in sum, would befall a government complacent and in place. de Sade is not the moral compass anyone or any individual needs to direct their own compulsions and urges, but for his work,  we can all see how a government that has lost its focus on the people becomes nerved when even a single individual publishes a manifesto against the foundation.

Dontrell Lovet't

[The Entanglement] a poem

I can live off your smile;

 everything of death, departure and loss subsides with the very sight-

-send your hands astray across my body,

 deep-throat my shaft until my mushroom-head tickles your tonsils,

revolve around the tip as the moon does this great planet-

-sex is the connect that disconnects us from

 the daze of being hostages to this world;

If we are to be captive, let us be captive in the

mist of our entangled beings, lost forever to this primitive

form of coexistence,

that is sex-

Dontrell Lovet't
-from [Labial Laughs]

[On the Transcendence of Sex] a byline

Once, there was a vacancy in my life filled by a woman named Stasia. One could say, with all conviction, that I loved her. Not in the sense of romantic notion "love" but lustful, sophist love, an all consuming passion. Stastia found me in the worst moments of my life, or I may have found her, I'm not sure of the sequence of incident- nevertheless, she was the flower that any man could ever dream, the flower between her legs that all men desired. In the most humane manner, her matter was one of complete instability, as an alkaline, dodgy she was and her untrusting nature took into me all the mystery I've ever wanted to seek anywhere in this world.

Stastia came one night in arousing pleasure and was unable to cum the next from ennui of what she distasted as ordinary. All methodology to please her was asymmetric, bizarre, even to me, but it was that creativity needed to satisfy her that I aspired to. It was habitual that Stastia fell for dishonest men, it is why she loved the artist; she believed us all to be partial, fickle, willing to debase in the sacrifice of art. A muse to my poem, she became my art in language, my art in the night, lying beneath me, her legs spread wide and the other thrown over one of my legs as I thrusted deep into her deep tunnel that held a stricture to cause me the convulsion within me to become uncontrollable. The hysteria of her womb somehow infected me as a venereal ailment, a possession of a demon who lived once for the orgasm and died for it, wished to be resurrected from the dead to suffer, if only once more, the paroxysmal spasm that was the price of that very prior life. The French kiss, venturing centuries from point of origin, found its way to her mouth, to my phallus, Kate Chopin, Anais Nin, both played the ancestresses to the stroke her palm made on a moist shaft created by her saliva.

There were others lovers, perhaps many others in Stastia's life, but she embraced in coitus as if her first time, the only time, her last, she gave everything for the transcendence that sex should be set upon. One could never enjoy the anticipation of her arrival which was always a mystery, but she showed, demanded all accumulation of desire with her insatiable appetite, feasted as an Epicurean beast until she left a skeleton of me, until all matter of lust had been released from me into her mouth. She was nourished on sperm and with the engagment, it may have been all she wanted to be fed. Napoleon, when exiled on the island of St. Helena, in his last dying days, refused all food, all water, and only wished to devour Vin de Constance. Stastia's Vin de Constance, her sweet elixir, her maidera, was sperm itself.

I've only broken the hearts of women who've seen it coming; but Stastia had long broken her own heart in an endeavor to access that ultimate transcendence brought on by coitus. Stastia, as Chagall, sought to destroy the material world and rebuild, reconstruct it from the inside out with the technique of sex and the psychic itself. She brought new fervor to my bed every time I laid her upon it to resign myself from my formal studies to informally study the nature of her. Sex of the old was of no interest to her; the Pygmalion in her wouldn't allow it to take form in her- it was all of complexity, of raw effortful eroticism that lived, as love can't, permanently, somewhere in the flush button.

Stastia was Chagall to me in the most feminime, the essentialist that advanced through sexual revolution, the robber of the sky, the beauty forsaken in dithyramb to conjure all pleasure to fall from some lustful deity in that same sky she braved when cumming, when in afterglow, when the refractory subsided and she again would succumb to the tatters of new desire. Transcendence is an interloper ideal, not defined by definite definition, it is a borrowing of ideal, scrapped-book philosophy, science. Nature itself cannot exist if not biodiversed, if not supernaturally injected. Someone must first fall to prove that they can stand. Stastia stood in a way where she needed sex to be as Monet needed trees, Chagall needed his bella. The body is a mechanism that can never be manipulated quite right, so in sex, transcendence must be the aim which spring forward into what is sensual. If the female autoerotic titillates herself magnificently, she will be burdened with repeat self-performance, to continue her art of hypoxyphilia, subconsciously she knows that whatever magic poured into her blood as an opiate, that drug can be much more potent and that potency is the central theme in which becomes her focal, an irrevocable conundrum that she must solve if she is to ever again cum to cumulus.

Subject to premonitions, Stastia shook the Euclidean, causing shockwaves in the celestial sphere, paled her double in the parellel universe, changed her structure as often a protozoa, restless, relentless. She was the Venus in fur that Leopold von Sacher Masoch spoke of, that "all women are cruel in love," and if that love is cruel, then her temperament should mirror it. A better love comes from pain as a better life is sought after one has slept at the foot of the ladder.

One must suffer in order to attain the full measure of art;  Stastia was that artist, the artist of form, interwoven physiological matrix, a decadent art that pushes one more outside of the present world, a way to subsist in the bland of habitual. If the archetype of the promiscuous is that of the whore, then in transcendence, beneath the whore the ordinary world exists, echo again silenced by for her continuum, the anomaly that makes of all men of good intentions, beast, upon their defeat to shamelessness.

Art is measuring the sky, climbing up as far as gravity would allow and climbing higher. In 1971 a man strung a wire between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral. For three hours, he walked and juggled along that high strung wire. This feat was repeated again between the world trade towers of New York City, between the northern pylons of the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, across the Great Falls of Paterson, New Jersey, between the spires of the cathedral in Laon, France and the Superdome in New Orleans, nine months after a forty foot fall from an inclined wire that saw him break several ribs, collapse a long, shatter a hip and decimate his pancreas. His name was Phillippe Petit.

In his own effort, Petit sought to measure the tolerance of gravity's leniency, never making a penny, nor garnering fame, all in the sake of art. It is perhaps incomprehensible to many why a man would risk his life for art; art exacts its price. Stastia's tight rope she walked was sex itself, on an incline. She placed her body on the line to live in suspended gravity to reach that transcendence that haunted her from the moment her libido first bloomed. And though Petit died without a legacy to show he ever existed, Stastia's leacy was the ghost in the eyes of all men she seduced, in my eyes.

Women of my life resemble artist as sex resembles art in its most exquisite human motion. However, in art, the female form is only a caricature, it is ever-evolving and cannot be truly or fully captured in its fullness or identical likeness. It is a portrait that can never be, a transitory beauty that makes of the endeavor to capture it, brilliant beauty.

The naked body is the truth beneath layers of many others. It relies on nothing to be told, relies on nothing to be echoed and in its independence, its own individuality, then there is utter dedication to the art of body gesture, of quintessential motion. Art is a gradual and slow growth, then a sudden, tremendous upsurge and one finds a fate that births the next. Stastia's virtue was the door to the fate she surpassed with every instance she suffered orgasmic death and death, that single moment, was the fulcrum fire she danced around to, being pulled centripetal with every flushed convulsion of her body.

Dontrell Lovet't

[Submission Statement] a poem

[submission statement]


chains are on the bed;

now lock yourself away,
submit to every will that is yours
& not yours


-Dontrell Lovet't
from, [Subtitles]

 

Preview of [Of Dikes & Deities] A short story cycle

Preview of [Of Dikes & Deities] A Short Story Cycle

            Intolerable kisses; the realities of sobriety- the obliteration of the hymen to the boorish impel of missionary position and youthful vigor. Sweat pouring from the forehead reaches his chin as he raises his head in natural response to pleasure. Madeleine turns her head to the side to avoid more. Bodily fluids exchange; saliva, tears, semen, sweat- all came of no surprise and though a virgin only moments before Chad (whatever his last name was) punctured and became the first to enter her tunnel, her experience as a demivierge introduced her to the fluster of asperity of the male counterpart. Yet the pain of vaginal intercourse was but a small price to pay, if indeed, she was to succeed in a higher purpose than finding love.

            A man is only as good as his last orgasm, his last sperm deposit, in nature, procreation is the epicenter of male existence. The drone, the Sausage Fly, the Praying Mantis, the Rodentia, the Black Widow all holds the simplicity of the animal kingdom and as a pupil of reproduction; Madeleine knew her goal to be highly tangible. With a quick finish, Madeleine forms her legs in a triangle guard hold around Chad to force him deeper inside as he released, gritting her teeth to a pain so excruciating it nearly rendered her unconscious.

            Once the aftermath of an orgasm subsided, Chad slowly pulled his flaccid-bound phallus from Madeleine, noticing a small spill of blood. “You’re bleeding,” Chad discloses with an admixture of both concern and vainglory.

The bleeding was minimal, not what Madeleine expected. She’d heard horror stories of friends who’d taken that leap into womanhood before her who, from their accounts, nearly exsanguinated. Anatomy varies from one woman to the other, while one may be less equipped for life from birth, the other may suffer minimal sickness throughout her entire life. By the time Madeleine returned after excusing herself to clean herself up, Chad was gone, not to her surprise nor despair; it is both usual for a man a woman just met only a few hours prior. The taboo would be if he stuck around inasmuch it is easier to leave rather than deal with the emotions attached. It served Madeleine schedule honestly- only a few hours from then she would be entertaining yet another guy, one she knew a bit better. She made a habit of noticing Jamal’s eyes always burning a hole through her blouse, to her D cups and encouraged his comments of tongue rings. Once inhibited, Madeleine knew if she was to succeed in her mission, she’d have to evolve, Darwin’s theory, survival of the fittest. A tongue piercing wasn’t so bad nor were the lessons and experiences of using it in conjunction with short-cut shirts that barely held her cleavage; if pornography is incapable of teaching sexuality to the inexperienced, than its mainstream culture holds no true value beyond cathartic release. A blowjob always sets the tone and most men, during the course of, would falter from their original wist of oral sex and yearn for the entrance into the second or third orifice. With all the modern knowledge and enthusiasm, Madeleine ignored the pain still resonating, using special numbing agent in conjunction with a few Tylenol following a quick shower.

            If a woman can handle 919 men in a matter of 24 hours, Madeleine was optimistic at her ability to handle one more. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but to think of the myth of Negro ancestry and their male endowment. If Chad could hurt her, what could Brandon do? Her strategy was simple, once overheard by her stepmother, Kasey Carlyle, the self-declared “Snicker Liquor,” whom herself once known a black man a few nights or two, oral sex would be the key; to titillate and manipulate until he begins to shake uncontrollably, then take him deep inside of her.

            Brandon arrived on time, greeting her as the friend Madeleine believed him to be- but friendship was moot. There was something much more valuable in the workings, something much more permanent that made friendship seem folly. Within the first few seconds of the film, Madeleine initiates, kissing Brandon, allowing his hands to explore the curves he’d been dreaming of for so long, while simultaneously yet pondering the myth. With slight rubs to his groin area, she would feel his arousal grow. She adjusted her back away from the sofa to make it easier to remove her blouse and the moment it was off, Brandon leaned over and began kissing her breast, both his hands groping her massive breast before he pulled them free and found her nipples with his tongue. For the first time that day, she had become aroused herself and it gave her the pep to get to her knees, pull Brandon’s phallus free from between his zipper and began polishing it with saliva. He was big but not as big as her fanciful mind made him out to be and that was of great relief. She licked up and down his shaft until it was well lubricated and took him into her mouth, sucking on him with such enthusiasm that his sighs were a mesh of sensual pleasure and surprise. This time she added the use of her hand, remembering not to grip his phallus too tightly, as her step mum warned her not to do, and jacked the opposing of her sucklings. As needed, she added indulgence, moans, giving off the impression that his phallus tasted good to her, as though she could suck all day and get all the nourishment she needed, all the nourishment all true women only needed according to one of her idols Anais Nin. For the occasion, she wore a short mini skirt, an article that could have passed off for a piece of lingerie. She couldn’t imagine herself again on her back being ravished by such a sizeable homologue, so she made the decision to control both depth and pace this time around. When Brandon was well flustered, she stood, began pulling down her panties until he took over and pulled them farther down. She climbed over his legs, placing both of her knees outside of his, using her light secretion from arousal and the remnants of her saliva still alive on the head of his phallus, she slowly place him and painfully and easily used her body weight to ease herself down onto him. Brandon could see that she was experiencing a bit of pain, so gently, he placed his hands on her waist until she was all the way down.

“Just like that, there you go baby,”

-he murmurs encouragement and it in turn Madeleine gave him something to encourage always encourage and afterwards, to always crave.

            Brandon, feeling the constriction of her warm vaginal walls against his flushed phallus, instinctually begins to kiss and lick her neck as his hands guided her hips up and down. The first fluctuation sent Madeleine into a painful moan that ended with a pleasure-filled sigh, throwing her head and body back as he sped up the pace, sucking on her nipples, losing a bit of his gentle nature. Animal instinct took over, Madeleine was in a full ride, a hard, deep repeating slam onto the base of Brandon’s phallus, crying out his name followed by blunt “fuck!”

There was an attempt to stay parallel but pleasure soon over took Madeleine after a bit of pain was out of the way and she again fell back, enjoying the feel of Brandon going in and out of her, his hands running up and down her body, the grasp of her breast. Her mouth begin to water, her voice falling away, her knees now shaking- she was for the first time, about to experience an orgasm and she did so just as Brandon fell into neuromuscular euphoria, releasing inside of her, his seed shooting all over an open cervix that contracted to pull in all of what came from his urethral bulb.

            It didn’t take long till after Brandon had left that Madeleine was once again inside of the shower, a quick one, hitting the hot spots; time was of the essence. Drying off very briefly, she lied on her back in her bed, her legs elevated and held by the side of her walls. Now all there was to do was to wait and see.

[2]

                        Sperm in competition are like men in competition over who will get the prize Madonna and in such a case, the penetration of the ova by way of shredding through the zona pellucida. Containing more than 30 elements, semen takes up to as little as an hour to reach a woman’s fallopian tubes and can live inside of her uterus for up to 5 days. The average male produces 76 million sperm per ejaculation- with two men in youth with high sperm count, sperm competition would assure that Madeleine would get the strongest to fertilize her ova. She had timed her ovulation perfectly, a small window at the end of June, which according to Playboy Magazine, the month majority of people tend to be deflowered. The female reproductive system is a consistent one and even so, very fragile. Over 7 million women were treated for infertility with an estimated 5 billion dollar spent the preceding year Madeleine decided to become sick with child. With the majority of first cycle treatments unsuccessful, the average bill for in vitro fertilization cost $12,500, a select procedure that most insurance companies refuse to cover. Only 42% of assisted-reproduction cycles lead to a live birth with a woman who is younger than 35. Worldwide 48.5 million couples are unable to conceive even after 5 years of attempting. Infertility might as well being a rampant plague to Madeleine, one she felt she was invincible to. The confidence of youth in life is like a deer being shot while his adrenaline is running full bolus- because his will to live has kicked in to survive, he doesn’t feel, much less know of his fatal wound that will end him within 2 miles of an attempt escape from the greatest prey with the least sharpened instincts in nature. Youthful flesh and fresh organs free of disease and wear and tear can go much further than the ones closer to succumbing to Hayflick’s Limit. It wasn’t long before Madeleine begin to feel the effects of morning sickness and the craving for foods that she never cared for, that she knew her promiscuity was fulfilled, knew that only in a matter of months, she would join the legion of mothers who had come before here, and those who were mothers in the presence, and of course, those who would see her growing belly and dream to come after.

            Madeleine’s mother was practically a ghost around the house, spending a great amount of time traveling on conferences and trysts with men around the country; so if an average teen would lack parents or validation, Madeleine had opportunity to conceal her pregnancy, until she knew at such time, it was a take it or leave it deal; left to the mercy of her mother, the fetus would be aborted and Madeleine shipped off to a boarding school at once. So she decided to wait till the first trimester had concluded to inform her mother that she had been raped by an unknown contemporary, at a party that she failed to recollect the address of setting. She would leave no loose ends nor give any details to give her mother leads to go about, she even begin to frequent Catholic mass to further submerge herself in the cloak of pro-life, then duly severing her contact with both Chad and Brandon, two more loose ends she couldn’t afford, both of whom served their primary and eventual purpose, sperm donors. And as her belly grew, so did her confidence, her ambitions. She found herself planning 1, 2, 5, even 10 years out, the name of her child, whether it would be a home or hospital birth, whether or not to take an epidural or brave the pains equivalent to 20 bones fracturing simultaneously in the body; there was so much to plan in so little time and to her complete surprise, her mother, placing aside what would surely be her daughter’s forfeit of a higher education, albeit temporarily, in grace of the certainty of being  a grandmother. Everything was in favor of Madeleine’s quest and destiny, something she had forged had finally come to fruition with both physical and mental determination and she felt it thoroughly a privilege to have captured her dreams at such a young age, and all it took, was a bit of skin and biological maneuvering; who said reckless sex didn’t pay out?

            Then that inevitable day came, when full-term presented a fetus daring and willing to come into the world via the trauma of birth. Taking the antiquated method taken by woman who had no choice but to follow suit with the lack of medical advancements in the past, Madeleine opted not to see an Obstetrician, take pre-natals or even discover the sex of her child; every trimester was spent on strolls, planning meals by the day, scouring the multiple baby showers, congratulations, mommy posts and afternoon park visits with nannies, mothers and mothers-to-be. There were no Lamaze classes, not a single consult nor worry to be had; she was going to be a mother and thus far, all the odds that were and could have been against her, all flailed and failed, destiny was on her side, time too, a confederate. Her mother was there and somehow her state of ailing with a child made their relationship much better, more akin to a friendship than a mother-daughter dilemma.

            Madeleine went into full-blown labor in record time, four to nine centimeters in a matter of half an hour. Perspiration covered every inch of her skin as she lied in her mother’s arms, in agony, pain and pleasure principle both clashing, the pain of feeling as though she was being split into two and the pleasure of knowing that she had every will of strength to exit what was the entire being to change her life and secure her future. But after four hours of labor, no crowning was in sight. A quick call into the paramedics led Madeleine’s mother to believe it could be a breach or something could be wrong; who could know, all of the medical work ups, sonograms, checkups have been skipped, so the possibilities could be endless.

            After some protest from Madeleine refusing to release her antiquated idea of having her child at home, her mother convinced her to allow the ambulance to intervene and clinicians to complete the birthing process. Madeleine despised hospitals, the nosocomial infections, the ineffective, ineffectual American healthcare system, the decrease in skill of the healthcare workers endemic to it.

Legs in stirrups, pain reverberating throughout her body, a doctor and student intern between her legs, her mother holding her hand, Madeleine struggles, continuously asking, continuously wondering, exactly when would she be asked to push. But that demand, that alert never arrived and it never would.

            Madeleine, still in pain, looked up to see the doctor almost in disbelief, asking the intern to run and get some test, whatever test, she couldn’t make out or understand but she feared, not for herself but for her baby; after all, that’s what a mother and mother-to-be does. Despite her worries, the pains became too great to bear and Madeleine saw a descending blackness upon her eyes, then it was all blackness, a lapse of time coming to a complete stop, then a sudden halt in the noises of her own screams and around her, she fell into a world of nothing.

            Coming back into consciousness, Madeleine slowly regained her bearings, looked around and found her mother unsettled in a chair, a look of worrisome and confusion about her face. As her eyes opened wide, her mother quickly walked over to her, crossing the room, where Madeleine’s head stop full on a still enlarged belly.

            “What happened,” she asks her mother groggily.

            “Baby,” her mother wipes streaming tears from around her face, drowning her cheeks, “I don’t know.”

            Madeleine finally found panic bothering her, “Where’s my baby?”

The only answer she received were sobs, echoing around the rooms as if they were the only sounds in the world, as if they were bouncing along the walls, knowing there was no way or reason to leave the air of misery, tattooing itself into the sheetrock, an intramural prayer that all unfortunate has come or will come to know.

            Madeleine began to go into hysteria, raising her voice so loud it completely made all sobs from her mother defunct. “Mom, where’s my baby?!”

Suddenly she felt if perhaps no one was listening to her, that she may have been in a dead zone, baring and blaring only a voice she could hear that the world had gone deaf to. The more she screamed, the more she seemed a mute, no one was listening, why wasn’t anyone listening? All she wanted was to hold the child she carried for 9 months, a child she nurtured, rebuilt her life around the very gestating miracle blooming inside her.

            The doctor Madeleine vaguely remembered came rushing into the room, joining her mother in trying to calm her fluttering anxiety. Everything around her seem to go red, her skin crawled with the want, the need to see her child, the product of so much long before she entered the door of her first trimester. She screamed and screamed as she heard the voices to try and calm her begin to add up, though she saw no one and nothing she could distinguish from the veritable crimson, ever-gradual, so deep she could have believed herself to be going blind if not so mad with color. The only thing she could hear was the doctor telling her mother, “this is normal, it’s a side effect of her condition, expect it to come and go for the better part of a month or two at the most.”

            It took about half an hour to completely calm Madeleine, her fatigue from thrashing and screaming aiding the medical intervention. When she was all settled and once her breathing returned to normal, her vision began to return to its original state of sharpness, her hearing lost its acuteness.

            The doctor approached her, pulled up a chair and sat next to her bed.

“It’s going to be hard for you to hear this Madeleine, there isn’t a baby, there never was.”

“I..I don’t understand, did my baby die, was it stillborn?”

“Madeleine,” the doctor reiterated clearly, “there was never a baby.”

She found the strength to sit up, still hoping that she was in some kind of cosmic tragicomedy, or that her mind was playing tricks on her, overplaying its hand at night terrors.

Once the doctor saw she was in a position where she was fully comprehensive, he continued, “It’s called Pseudocyesis, a false pregnancy.”

Now Madeleine found herself so lost in confusion, all she could do was repeat what the doctor’s words were.

“uhh…false? I carried the baby, I had morning sickness, labor pains, swollen limbs..”

“Yes, it’s difficult to explain because currently science can’t explain it. The best explanation is at some point your Endocrine system, the system that secretes all the hormones your body needs to function, must have gone haywire and begin to secrete the hormones we see in women carrying a child.”

Madeleine was rendered speechless, unable to form any thoughts, any opinions to give, any more rebellion to a situation that seemed definite, final. She just lied back in her bed and stared off at the wall, drowning out the world by pure will. An incredible sadness overcame her as she still waited for the nightmare to subside. But it never did.

            Madeleine was taken home a few days later by her mother. She was in almost a catatonic state, barely eating, barely taking in fluids, lost in disbelief, like an invalid in an eventide home. Her mom took a sabbatical from work to look after her, to see after her, as the Psychiatrist told her of her daughter’s frailness, giving her information on sudden and spontaneous chemical changes in the body of someone suffering from what was an extremely rare phenomenon in the human body. So her mother reminded her to shower, helped her to shower, practically forced her to eat the little she did, made sure she left her room, visiting regularly to ensure she wasn’t hanging at the end of a rope from the ceiling and that is how life inside their home was regulated until such time Madeleine’s mind was able to regulate a more self-suitable standard.

            After about a month of the tiresome routine of ailing from the colliding chemical aftermath of being “with and without” child, Madeleine convinced her mother that she was well enough to go out, knowing that the fresh air would do her well, reemerging into the world where the beauty she’d forgotten existed and also the beauty she’d been denied. How does a woman return to a state of grace once she comes full circle to see the dream she has been dreaming had been just that, a dream, and awakening, what else has she to hold on to other than the reality of having nothing to hold?

            Madeleine found a park she’d never seen before in a neighborhood she’d never before visited. She had no bearings inasmuch bearings didn’t matter, not much more did. Sitting on a bench, she appeared to be the most unkempt, disheveled woman, the saddest woman anyone can ever hope never to see. Although she received sporadic stares of inquisition, there were all vague, brief enough for Madeleine to escape the radar detection parents tend to have to protect their offspring from lurking danger. I mean, what was it that they would be fearful of? It was just a sad woman on a bench, having a moment and feelings to her, bothering no one else in the world, just herself in her world.

            The children scattered the park, playing with no a care in the world; chase, hide and seek, cracking the whips, a festival of complete chattering. It was then, there, at that moment, surrounded by all the life denied to her, that Madeleine felt her feet carry her, movement without effort, towards a gorgeous little girl playing near the trees by herself. She seemed so lost in her own fun, needing not entertainment from the other kids. Madeleine walked up to her as the little girl turned, looked up at her, “Good morning, you alright?”

“I am now.” And only for a moment, Madeleine wanted to pick her up, just hold her a minute and so she did, lifting the little girl to her hip without a fuss or fight from the child and began to walk away from the park, her pace increasing to a full sprint away.

-from [Of Dikes & Deities]

by Dontrell Lovet't

[Bodies Burning] a Poem

[Bodies Burning]

I love my body when in your arms of your body.

brand new is this sensation,

 memory intact, nerves ablaze.

Your body does what mine does not,

I love to wonder of its whys. Your vertebrae shivers, trembles to my

 coarse hands, or is it my tongue that has given you a chill?

I love to love the wonders and whys and what’s,

the slow shock of combustion lit by the short fuse of orgasm,

 electric currents in a sea of currents,

parting legs and crumbs of afterglow thrilling

 chills, chilling still your body

 which loves how I love it so anew

-from [The Paper Womb II]

Dontrell Lovet't