High Voltage
Julien O. Wilde
About the Author
Julien O. Wilde writes queer‑centered fiction and poetry exploring desire, rupture, and the charged spaces where the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. His work blends emotional intensity with atmospheric imagery and examines the fragile architectures of longing, power, and transformation.
High Voltage / Low Light
The bar is too loud, the light too bruised,
but your mouth is sudden geometry—
a quiet violence I walk into willingly.
First taste of a man: salt, smoke,
stubble scraping the soft lie I told myself for years.
A short circuit in the dark.
The beautiful, dumb biology of a car crash
where tomorrow is the only thing that dies.
C₈H₁₁NO₂ floods the gutters of the brain
as we stumble into the piss-stained bathroom,
turning the filthy tile into a launchpad.
Two men sweating through cheap cotton,
hands frantic, stripping the wiring.
Muscle against muscle—blind, greedy, precise.
Breath ragged, the arc bends tighter,
until the white-out cracks us open:
teeth, spit, hot metallic rush—
no names, no shame,
just the brief, violent mercy of forgetting
every word they tried to nail into our chests.
Neon flickers. Smoke thins.
We lie in the wet wreckage,
skin cooling fast, sweat turning clammy,
hearts still stupidly racing, too dumb to quit.
Already the golden hook behind the sternum
yanks harder.
Already the ache puts on hunger’s ugly face again—
familiar, irresistible.
We stare at the cracked ceiling like it owes us another hit,
knowing we’ll crawl back soon
because the crash is just loud advertising
for the hit that hasn’t happened yet.