I’m well acquainted
with the eyelashes on his cheeks
the way his mouth curls
around words with no finesse
the strength in his hands
and the furrow between his brow
when he catches me looking

I’m in awe of his smile
shy- like young flowers
in bloom for the first time
I love his caramelized eyes
a singularity of tooth-aching sugar
the first drop of the roller coaster
when his hand touches mine

I suppose I’m in love with him
why else would I be jealous
of the sun-beams on his skin
and the cool sheets on his bed
a closeness I wish I knew

I didn’t go to class yesterday.

I thought about it, and I know that I should have gone, should have rallied, but I didn’t.

I lay in bed, instead, thinking about benches by lakes and late nights and what it means when a kid puts a gun to his head and doesn’t put it down.

I cried a lot, for myself, and for my dad, and for a boy I didn’t even know that well but miss anyway.

We just have to keep going, I had told them, but then my bones remade themselves out of sadness and misery and I didn’t know them any more.

They wouldn’t listen to me when I asked to get out of bed.

I’m doing my best, really, I am, but sometimes my brain is static in an empty motel room, where the sun never rises, and the moon never sets, and I can’t do, I can’t feel, I can’t blink, all I can do is just

breathe.

So yesterday I didn’t go to class.

I lay in bed, breathing, and hurting, and I didn’t tell you.

I didn’t tell you, so you wouldn’t worry.

It only occurred to me now that that is far more concerning, isn’t it.

static communication line
it’s just
me and you
now

drifting
like so many clouds
wrapping our anger into hailstones
persecuting each other like salem all over again

but the line is silent now
a million miles away
control yells our names
but we do not hear

static and breath and the entity
that is what could have been
had we not become
who we are

the line crackles
to life, control
yelling my name
and yours

and softly
I take your hand
like the water of the aloe
and the entity
is engulfed
in flames

There’s something I like about
being put on my knees
the push and pull of control
like a livewire until suddenly
I can let go
into this safety net of being
here on my knees
for someone who will
take care of me
I like resting my
head in someone’s hands
something fragile
unfolding
in me
through the open swinging door
I like to feel hands
in my hair
that make me feel small
and safe
like nothing
in the world would dare
hurt me
for fear of you

There’s something I like about
being put on my knees
the push and pull of control
like a live-wire until suddenly
I can let go
into this safety net of being
here on my knees
for someone who will
take care of me
I like resting my
head in someone’s hands
something fragile
unfolding
in me
through the open swinging door
I like to feel hands
in my hair
that make me feel small
and safe
like nothing
in the world would dare
hurt me
for fear of you

drop me like pouring water from your hands
indelible in the way it bleeds through my skin
euphoria floating in pale clouds round my mind
like waking up and falling back asleep
all at once

sometimes I feel like my wings
are just holding me down
my mother calls them a blessing
but I’ve never heard of a blessing like this
what god gave me these wings
and thought “this will be great”
as his hand molded my bones
knowing I would never
I could never
that my wings
would never
let me

fly

I don’t want a poetic romance
I know, that’s a new one
it’s hard for folks to understand, sometimes
that I don’t want my lover to shine like the sun
I don’t need to see stars in his eyes
or think endlessly about the soft skin on his thighs
because my lover
can be whatever he **** well wants

who am I to walk in
to fold him into boxes
and metaphors like cages
my love
doesn’t look like yours
and if you think that’s an insult
take a step back and reconsider
what love is
what love means

because I call love that feeling that I can’t describe to you
because the words don’t exist yet
or if they do
they’re too simple for you and I to understand

breakfast

umbrella

teardrop

hold

my lover is all these things and more
and that is what I love for
maybe one day he will no longer be

umbrella

maybe I’ll look at him some time
and see that the breakfast in him
has faded away
and been replaced with something new
sand, maybe

poetry romance would tell me
that this means something
that I must look again
look closer
tear us apart until I find where it went
because in poetry
if you love something
you must grab it with both hands
for fear that it might escape

I’d like to argue that that isn’t love
but wanting

my lover is a swimming pool
cool and comfortable and jarring
at first
something from my childhood and my future
because we will never stop going
to the swimming pool

my lover is unfolded laundry
and all those unsightly things
that are part of us
morning breath
nervous sweat before a first date
finding out you don’t like the same movies
and knowing
that it’s okay

I am just a man
and so is he
and I am breathless with having him
and I dare to hope he is knocked breathless
with having me

as he does
as he did
as he will

Sometimes my longing for you
runs over
into longing for myself
not in the biblical sense,
god no,
but in this wanting
that breaks fiercely out of my skin
a wild hurt that you are not here
that you and I are not us
that I am not you

today is a mourning day
black hurt rushing over me like skin
everything I could have said to you
crying out
“thank you”
“you taught me everything”
“I’m sorry.”
words cut me like teeth
I could have said this to you
I should have said it to you
while you were here
but I didn’t
and now
it is today
a mourning day
I’m crying not for myself
and what I should have done
but for you
there is no selfishness
here
anymore

you look so beautiful
that I want to kiss you
in front of both God
and the general public

“carne”
meaning ‘of the flesh’
of course
carnivore
carne asada
carnal pleasure
carne
the most human idea
of all
that there
is any discernible difference
between the flesh
of the Earth
and ours

sometimes I dream about falling in love

I dream hand in hand with faceless ghosts
who look like absolution when I catch a glimpse of their faces

I dream about certainty

twin suns turn the sky for eternity

celestial waltzing count 1-2-3, 1-2-3

look
at his hands
dexterity runs in his veins like blood
he cuts ice like an executioner
and he is real

I will not romanticize him
no more than he deserves
I find no beauty
in some parts of him
but that
of course
is natural

so much of him
though
is lovely
and fierce
in equal measures

the color of his eyes
warm and deep
most times
but sometimes
his eyes are strength
I would be afraid
if I didn’t know

that he likes marshmallows
in his hot chocolate
and
he can’t go to animal shelters
without crying
and
and I know what he looks like
in the morning
and at night

sleep-mussed
drooling
ridiculous
as all get out
ring
on his left hand

I told the salesman I didn’t want what he was selling
no thank you, I’m alright
in myself
my non-corporeal bits
of existence suit me
just fine
but the salesman
would not listen

he forced his greedy hands into my heart
to steal what I had
to make me one of his puppet-customers
I wished I’d never come
to the market today

I’m not an idiot - I knew of his tricks
shining lures in the crowd
waiting to drag us into his grasp
where he would take us
and wear us down like the tide on the shore
until

we would give in
and he would sell us his product
and buy away our freedom
for a price
far too high

an open letter to my personal demons:

if you’re going to haunt me
the least you could do
is pay rent

I wish you were proud of me

I wish I hadn’t done that thing that I didn’t do when I know I should have done it

but all I remember is how to perform now
how to smile just so now
shaping my words now
holding my breath now

are you proud of me?

please

say you are