(With)out

There is no sex without love.  I let a stranger roll my body atop his while I watch the way my hand looks on the mattress.  And my hand does not feel like mine and I don’t feel anything at all.  Love is there because it’s not there.  Where there isn’t anything at all is where a love that meant everything used to live.  I feel lips on my neck and I breathe because I’m alive. And the stranger’s breath is hot on my neck but there is no fire because there is no love to ignite a spark.  Love’s presence is in its absence.  The nothingness is what I wish wasn’t love and what I know it will never be and what I don’t want to believe it will never be again.