"I cheated on my girlfriend last thursday and this is my punishment"

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was written in white paint

on the cardboard sign

of a young woman

on the circle line

arranged against her knees

so everyone could read it

which was probably specified

in the conditions of the debt

strangers unremitting eyes

as whips flailing each

tendon and ligament

unhinging each joint

I used to think that self-flagellation proved something

that the spectacle of pain made it more meaningful

but I think that’s a lie artists tell themselves

as if their heartbreaks amount to more than anyone else’s

I want to tell the woman

people are not vending machines

you put courtesy tokens into

until sex falls out

like relationships are not two people

humiliating each other until

they’re equally sunk

into the economy of humiliation

and habitual hurting

makes up the transactions

that loop the bow

on what was once their love