Beloved

by Randy Ai

My pain is a lonely child
Left alone in the street
Crying for attention
Upon the first drops of rain

I struggle to ignore him
Walk away, and live life
Find happiness in love
And find hope in the puddles

But even as I am brave
His soft eyes beckon me;
My beloved lures me
As he craves my every touch

Suddenly, his hands grab me
Refusing to let go
Scorching my exposed body
And poaching my will to live

His set of pale, hungry teeth
So piercing and merciless
Sinks deeply into me
As though my flesh was his feast

“Child, you are all grown up now!”
I scream out in despair,
“Leave your only father
To die alone in his peace”

He looks at me in pity
But his teeth sink deeper
Not enough to kill me
So that soon he can eat again

Music

By Randy Ai

Her body is a beautiful playground

A sheet of music in the wind

And a blueprint for a symphony

He who wrote this music

Must have taken pains to scribe every single note

Waiting patiently for the day

That silence would turn to sound

She is inked with the combined memory

Of our collective and ancient history

The tiny neural pathways

Giving rise to the sensation of flesh

My fingers dance across the notes

Indulging in fast staccatos, and slow arpeggios

I play entire stanzas with the fury of a genius

Pushing her harder towards a cadence

I have become both conductor and musician

Master and magician

Vying for complete command

Of the instrument of my desire

Yet despite my power, I merely interpret the music

And cannot write it

I have no input in the process of composition

That began millennia ago

At times, in the middle of the night

She teases me by calling me an aspiring composer

And informs me that I worry too much

And as she lies there breathless

With my ears placed against her chest

Listening to the tempo of her heart beat

She reminds me that there is still beauty

In playing someone else’s music –

So perfectly