I wrote this poem in response to a strange court case. A group of sado-masochists were being prosecuted. They were performing weird and extremely painful acts on each other that included sandpapering their genitals, putting pins through their testicles, and nailing themselves to the table. They were filming this and sending it to each other.
Now I have no inclination towards S&M, I find it peculiar and a sad reflection on our repressive sexual culture that ends up confusing sexual feelings with pain, violence, punishment, subjugation and degrading acts, but I could not see why a group of consenting adults who were doing no harm to anyone else but themselves should be prosecuted. They were publicly humiliated (they might have enjoyed that bit), lost careers, split up families and were imprisoned.
Surely what consenting adults chose to do in private is up to them?
Leave me be
Sandpaper me
Put pins in my body
Burn me with fire
To the dirge of some midnight choir
Don’t ease my thirst
Make it worse
I don’t want to recover
I want to suffer
As you can see
I’m happy here
In agony
I’m quite alone
Cut to the bone
Happy in silence
With nothing
To make any sense
Don’t give me another session
I’m deliriously happy
In my depression.
Opher 7.1.96