![By Viviane Sassen](https://theoffingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/76851492_ca34c697d6_o.jpg)
Night is lonely as unplucked
guitar strings. Desire: blue
hum of a phone screen making
neon from my skin’s damp spread.
Ugly music of two bodies
rapt in the performance of lust.
Dance choreographed for a third
party’s pleasure. The screen freezes
&, for a moment, pixelates cum
to flakes of off-white snow.
A mattress can be a kind of desert.
Mine, a drought—
40 days without softness.
My palm makes the sound
of a thirsty mouth. I am jealous
of crickets, for how they turn
friction to song.