Carl Rubino

some subtle inspiration

for the writing of a thought

or at least a phrase or two

comes when you least expect it

like a visitor to a distant home

maybe late one evening

or in the pre-dawn hours

when up to take a leak

a few seemingly disconnected

yet colorful words seem to speak themselves

without forethought or plan

like the start of a rogue erection

that comes without intent or design

you just can’t leave it hanging

like some dangling participle

what so dormant desperation

drives us to desire so deeply

that forbidden sensation that we know we must never relish

like some sinful taste that we know must never touch our lips

let alone seemingly even cross our mind(s)

what deep sorrow denies such lustful craving or thirst

that brings so many astray

yet keeps others on the edge

never to experience the depths of their own depravity, if that it be

so still just once more

i take hand to self

to release the rush

i’ve come to love as my own secret pleasure

just one time more

oh i promise, promise once again, just one more time

for the nuns took all us boys aside

and told us that taking our moistened, gliding palms to self

was a forbidden pleasure  that could eventually make us blind for life

and would surely damn us to the eternal fires of hell

i always wondered why they never said anything like that to the girls

as though they thought the girls were too cherubic to even conjure up the thought 

of something so self-pleasuring and forbidden

but i was sure they were just like us in that special way

only maybe even better at it than we were

‘cause i walked in on my sister once

just as she found her special moment

and one day i asked her about it and she told me all her friends did it too

and she asked me if i did it

and i told her yes, and she smiled.

so i knew, no matter what the nuns thought

i knew,

and it made my happy to know, that the girls did it too

‘cause if the girls did it 

then i knew i wasn’t a perv for doing it to myself,

no matter what the nuns said

and from then on i was free to do it whenever i wanted

yet i still can’t help but notice that my vision does seem to have

diminished, even if ever so slightly, over the years

as things are not as clear of sight to me

as once they were

so in the midst of celebrating my rogue happenstance

i loosened my grip for just a moment

to wonder if i should stop,

or at least if this should be the last time

but things were well past the point of no return

and as i reached my special delight

i figured, fuck it, i can always get glasses…