A Second Innocence

Beyond debauchery
lies a mute innocence.
Not of a child,
but of senses burned so raw
that experience is reduced to
the hiss of a dead television
and only silence feels new.

I’ve been a pilgrim
in the searing desert
of that soundless place,
my heart burnished,
my hymen restored
and I wonder

the purpose of the passage
if only to end up
in Eden
alone.