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