I read an ad recently
‘Get your Valentine’s day hampers while they last, order in advance lest you be disappointed’
But what I really read was…
'Get your Valentine’s day humpers while they last, order in advance lest you be disappointed’
Because I’m a clown like that
I make light of this day ‘Valentine’s’
The fourteenth day of the second month of every year
That makes everyone realize how attached or alone they are… really, I find that the most stupid fear...
Is the fear of not being paired up… yet
I say ‘yet’ because it’s going to happen sooner or later, more than once
Like it has happened before
But oh, you want to sulk and sob in your depressingly darkish room… behind the self made prison that is your closed door
Because you just want to wallow in self pity… because you're so low
Forever alone
Call me a *****
And a realistic one at that I like to think
But I find this entire obligation to have someone on this day quite unnecessary… which makes me kind of curious
As to who is really authentically ‘in’ love
And who is apparently “in love” for convenience reasons
These self made prisons
I joke through this day… with female friends, my true Valentines
No charades, no pretentious antics
Just funny nonsense with the coolest, realest fun chicks
To all those that have their better halves… well "power to you"
Way to go, we’re happy for you
You probably enjoy the most out of this day ‘Valentine’
I didn't mean to sound conceited… for we are all allowed to court
To be arrested by passion, maybe I’ll get past these ‘flings’ and also have my day in court…
Yeah, maybe someday I will have mine
Again.

I was taught to be myself
That knowledge was the best kind of wealth
That I would grow up to be someone great
Now that's all demolished because of the hate
Trying to find myself
In a world full of lost people
Is like trying to find a piece of hay
In a pile full of needles
Everywhere I go
I get poked
People with all their gay jokes
Or the ones who try and tell me that God doesn't love me
Oh I'm sorry I didn't know you spoke for the Big Man up above me
And people ask the dumbest question
I feel obligated to give sarcastic answers
See the ones who judge me
Are usually the ones who don't know me
I can be your best friend
Or your worst enemy
It all depends on how you treat me
And people usually don't understand
That I'll be hated forever
Even if I can get married anywhere
Hatred will live on forever
Which we shouldn't be proud of
And what will our children think
When they look back at our history
Oh they hated gay people
Like that's some big mystery
See I could talk about this all day
I'll take my pride all the way to my grave
Live each day as if it were my last
While you're busy hating me
I'll just look at you and laugh

And when I fell, I fell for every inch of you.
The miniscule details that the naked eye would miss.
I fell in love with the way you sipped your tea
And the way your lips looked pressed around a cigarette filter.
I fell for the way your fingertips caused electricity to run through my veins.
I loved every follicle of hair, every fingernail and freckle
These things consumed and wrapped me in their arms
They infected my brain until it was all I knew.
My heart filled and exploded from these things I felt.
I was scared
And I ran
And I’m sorry.
These details still swim in my skull and I try to get them to disperse.
But there’s no escaping something that’s become a part of me.
So I'll yank at my limbs and dismember my ribcage and pick apart every last aching memory of what I've done to you.
And I'll lie there in pieces feeling more whole than before.

Sigh.
This is hard.


My eyes are getting heavier with each passing day and the boy I see in the mirror
looks almost like a man.
Almost.

I am thankful for all the unkind words.
They made me strong and they made me carefree.
But when the lights go off and piano notes dance around my room the sheets feel lonely and my room feels cold.
When I close my eyes, my fingers are running along your cheek and my lips are brushing your nose.
You're not here.
I don't even know...

who
you
are.
But I hear myself whisper your name.

I know that somewhere in the universe, pieces of our souls flown through lonely tears and childhood wishes are are dancing with one another in the rain.
...kissing after dinner...
..making love after a fight...

I am so madly in love with you and I have no idea who you are.
Whether you even exist at all yet or whether I pass you every day.

I make no promise that I will caress your skin.
I make no promise that I will hear you laugh.
I make no promise that I will ever find you.


But I promise to always keep looking,
so keep your eyes open too...



With all my love whoever you are,

Joshua Haynes

Supposedly beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Which is super gay
So when I say you are beautiful
This is what I mean

You are beautiful in the same way
That the word, “believe” in sign language
Can translate to being married to your own thoughts

When a person sees something beautiful
Their pupils can increase up to 45 percent in size
I’m not high today I swear
Just that
You surprise me every time

Your left lung is smaller than your right
So it can make room for your heart
That’s just biology

And when they say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach
When people blush
Their stomach lining turns red too

Laughing lowers stress
A 7 year old can laugh almost six hundred times in one day
An adult
13 to 100
I want to make you laugh like we are 7 again

I was 7 once
I’ve had seventeen years practice since then

When you put a shell to your ear
What you are really hearing is the sound of your own blood
Rushing through your ears
There is a ******* ocean inside of you
That swells like lungs
And rushes a steady current of mostly
Unattractive creatures
You are like the bottom of the sea
All single celled and fight for life
In darkness

And maybe that doesn’t seem too beautiful
But you don’t really know what’s down there
Do you?

You are beautiful like old people
Who think you are sweet
Because you’ve had enough patience
To match their pace
“I don’t know when I got old” she said
“But I wasn’t ready. It took me ten years to figure this place out.
“I’m 94. I don’t have another ten.”
And she kissed me

Beautiful like poetry
When poetry hurts the most
When it gives you goose-bumps

And I bet if I stuck my arm inside a music box
To let my chilled skin pluck the metal keys inside
There wouldn’t be music
I am too soft
And it would hurt
But it looks like if I were hard enough
There might be
It would sound like chaos
The keys are beautiful
But the sound inconsistent

Beautiful
Like the collaboration of molecules
That understood pointillism enough to make me
But still experimental
So they gave me cancer
And I’m shorter than I want to be
And I am pretty sure they are laughing
About what they did to my brain
But my lungs are perfectly uneven
So my heart can pump oceans
So I can move and be stupid
And do things like tell you

You are ******* beautiful

For the sake of discretion, when I retell this story, I am a fish, gill-hooked, near gutted, and thrown back. You are a goose with swan beauty, but not swan grace. There is a girl throwing bread onto the water above my head. Competing for the same crumbs, through what could be a mirror, our mouths met. You took the bread, but I kissed you.