i can never tell them.
this is one of the two things i realised when i turned sixteen.
the other, well, it isn't hard to guess.
tearful confessions, anger, acceptance, indifference.
each prospect as possible as the next. i don't care.
all i know is that everything will change.
everything will change and i will become irreverence
or cease to be at all.
i can never tell them.
'dude that's ******* gay'
the low cackle of my parents laughing at my brother
'don't curse.'

Give me a thousand kisses.
I will not feel them.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred.
I will not feel them.
Old men and their centuries of crooning lend me nothing.
My heart is still, my night endless,
my thirst eternal.
Images of rivers, lakes, oceans
quench my thirst like nothing else,
yet drinking is ever the more repulsive.
The brief light has set.
da mi basia mille.
I will not feel them.

the window at the store shows me with you
reflected back next to one another
but you're on the other side
maybe as a radio behind the glass
but even discounted i'm a little short
know that even that your voice
can be crackly and break
it can also be soft and smooth
and i'd bet all the money i have
that you purr like an old cat.
i know exactly where i'd put you
right next to the green teapot
where tunes would always play
until i stop you right after supper
and your hands run through
your black fire in concentration
until i can't help but marvel
at the expression your face displays
when i talk to you, the one
where the corners of your mouth
curl up like the spark of me
removing the plug from
the wall socket
by my bed.

Blue rimmed sunglasses.
They were once someone else's.
They belonged to a boy with red hair,
always in the middle rows with no gaps
spared, endless friends.
Our eyes once met underground.
I know you do not remember.
Fearful eyes. I now recall.
I do not know why I ever thought it was
reverence.
Summer ending, hair cropped,
you greeted the person next to me
before shaking my hand.
We have just laughed away an hour in front of the lights.
Oh, mirabile auditu.