He moved away in 5th grade
A few towns down
Never saw him or heard of him
after that
until
the news.

Taught me how to write my number 9's
Fancy like they did in the text book
We joked about movies we liked
in 3rd grade

But he was hit by a car
and killed at age 13

1/3 of our middle school
hung our heads like a
rusty sign
on a graveyard gate
and the other 2/3 chatted
about not knowing him

All he is known for now is his ending
The news advertised his life
as "Hit by a car and died"

The obituary sums him up
but only we know the real him
and what lies behind that title

If no one
Knew what gay was
Who'd be gay?

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

You answered just a little too fast.
It surprised me.
I haven't seen you in about a year,
And I am realizing I've missed you.
It surprised me.
The last time I saw you,
And the time before that,
You were intoxicated.
It surprised me.
I haven't seen you in about a year,
And I am realizing what you are to me.
It surprised me.
You are a dress without hems or seams.
I hardly know you but you are beautiful.
You are the bullet in the rotating cylinder of the gun to my head.
You dig through my skull and explode my amygdala.
And force me to love you.
You are the jam in the barrel as I pull the trigger.
I fell to the ground in realization:
You both killed me and saved me.
It surprised me.

There was a cat named Crazy Christian
Who never lived long enough to *****
He was gay hearted, young and handsome
And all the secrets of life he knew
He would always arrive on time for breakfast
Scamper on your feet and chase the ball
He was faster than any polo pony
He never worried a minute at all
His tail was a plume that scampered with him
He was black as night and as fast as light.
So the bad cats killed him in the fall.

Never trust a white man,
Never **** a Jew,
Never sign a contract,
Never rent a pew.
Don't enlist in armies;
Nor marry many wives;
Never write for magazines;
Never scratch your hives.
Always put paper on the seat,
Don't believe in wars,
Keep yourself both clean and neat,
Never marry ******.
Never pay a blackmailer,
Never go to law,
Never trust a publisher,
Or you'll sleep on straw.
All your friends will leave you
All your friends will die
So lead a clean and wholesome life
And join them in the sky.

She will lose herself in a book
and find herself in poetry

She thinks that religion is a sacrilege
and that long showers are sacred

She makes love when she's tired
and never tires of making love

She is irreverent in her humor
and pious in her gravity

She is diligent in completing her work
and ambitious of her quest for leisure

She is the personification of romanticism
and the embodiment of compassion

She exists harmoniously in my mind

"--you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create."
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.