gay*
/pronounced gaaaay/*
noun

1. bandages through the body, old turtleneck sweaters, hidden love bites, vexed skin, a body meant for poetry, shivering, cold, like in the night, happy, but afraid, every time someone calls out your name.

2. Shivering again, happy, but afraid, again. *******, Rushed, Dim lights, pleasure without any sound, no moaning, mourning.

3. Lovers without name.

Felonious bologna spread
sweet meaning lips to air
through air to ear.
Good kids grew up framed
Bad kids grew up changed
Zip burnt bone butts
Sweep the back patio
Procure snap lights
Glow sticks in darkness
Vibration received
One hand on the other's trail
White-blue red-pink
Write names with innate
Shapes in muscle memory

I noticed her first
on the other side of the street
blonde, standing tall
an air of ease
engrossed in whatever she was talking about
with him.

I noticed him then
dark, broad
listening close
hanging on her words as if they were worth money
an expression of admiration
five o’clock shadow
furrowed brow.

I kept my eyes on the grey
of the ground. In the cold
I shuffled my scarf as if she might see it –
the place that he kissed me
above my collar bone, the curve of my neck
two nights ago.
They didn’t notice me at all.

"No!" - He protested
Yes, he had said that she was like lightning,
but he meant that she startled him
with her randomness
and thunder,
and not that she pulsated
writing a spiderweb
into the nights sky;
it was that she filled him with a certain
nervousness...
and no, that nervousness was not
like an electricity.

And while the argument continued
it was brought up that he had also compared her to a storm.
It wasn't because she climbed with a certain
inexorable quality
like the tides
or that she was the perfect mix
of calm pretense
and wuthering looks.

It was more because she reminded him of the rains
lightly dancing on his bedroom window
making him dream.