i read the ovid and the sappho and
try to pretend i don’t see myself
reflected in every poem
achilles and patroclus rip apart my chest and heart and
i try to hide that their love [their tragedy] has left me bleeding

i go home and memorise auden’s lullaby
in the safety of midnight and my bedroom and i never recite it to anyone but i hold it close to my heart and keep it there

i’m not a tragedy yet but there’s still time

who’s to say if i guard my copy of howl a little too closely
it’s just a book but the pages and the words have sharp edges and they’re dangerous

i have to
hide from the open passion, from the naked light of their pure love
of their impure love
of their gentle emotions that ripped apart relationships and took lives

if i don’t see that passion in myself am i lying or just not looking hard enough

they say that aphrodite was the first olympian
and doesn’t that fit?
the concept of love arose
before anything else, before hateful eris and warlike ares

like apollo’s hyacinthus she grew;
not from those gentle spring slopes but
from the frothing passion of sea foam from the tumultuous violence of the waves she arose
beauty, in all its manifestations
before all