I tremble at the edge of what I want and what would destroy me. The world doesn't bend to command, doesn't kneel for desperation. So I bargain. The slow seduction of asking instead of taking.

I want everything, luxury and excess. To drown in sensation, to consume and be consumed, to touch the world in places that makes it shiver and surrender. But my hands shake when I reach out. There's a meekness in my desire, a shyness in how I approach what I crave so violently. I whisper my wants like prayers, like if I'm gentle enough the world might let me have it.

So in bargaining, I offer pieces of myself in exchange for “light”, trade my “darkness” for glimpses of what I hunger for, touch the world softly at first here, and here and here, finding the places that make it flush and melt into my palm like wax, like honey, surrender. And for a moment, it works.

But oh, if you can touch it, it can touch you back. And the world is not gentle. It takes what it wants and in return reaches inside me with luminescent hands that burn as much as they illuminate, strips me bare in ways I didn't agree to, demanding pieces I wasn't ready to give. The bargain goes both ways, I know now, too late, that what I desire desires to devour me just as much.

I am caught between wanting to run and wanting to stay, It waits for my decision, patient and predatory, knowing I'll come back because I always do, shy and desperate and trembling, ready to bargain again and trade pieces of myself for one more touch, one more taste, one more…