. (or: when I heard my voice come from his mouth) .

At first, it was flattery—
the way he wore his collar the same way I do,
the way he started lighting my brand of cigarettes,
the way his laugh hit the same register
I used to throw like a knife across rooms.

I caught him reading my journal once—
not with guilt, but reverence.
“I like the way your thoughts bleed,”
he said, closing the leather cover like scripture.

He stopped asking me questions.
He already knew the answers.

My shirts disappeared one by one.
Then my habits.
Then my silences.

I watched him pour bourbon
with the same three-count I perfected in 1994.
Watched him cross his legs just so,
quote my warnings back to me
as if they were lessons he taught himself.

He ****** me like a rehearsal.
And I let him—God help me—
because some part of me believed
that to be repeated is to be remembered.

But memory is a shallow grave.

One night,
he answered the phone with my cadence.

“This is he,” he said—
voice dry as an autumn branch.
And for a second,
even I believed him.

I didn’t confront him.
I just started talking less.

He filled the air like a flood.
My presence became parentheses.

In bed,
he started calling me old man—
not as a kink,
but as a countdown.

I smiled.
But it tasted like rust.

The boy I devoured
was digesting me back.

And prophecy, that silent ******,
licked its lips
and kept watching.

I don't think, I really want this...

But surely, I
still have the eyes, to perceive
that she's the kind of,
fever dream
that makes grown men, and women,
lament, and weep

for the way, her jeans
gather round, her knees, and thighs--
for the way, her eyes...
pay homage, to the ancient skies...

would you take...a ride?
And, hey...would I...?
I don't think I might...

but she asserts her swerve,
with a certain sway,
and her curves,
would serve,
as hors d'oeuvres,
for days.
Her fruity lips...
with a sparkle glaze

they trickle...dark...as marmalade.
But if harvested, late...
what's their carnal taste?

...Is she the mark, on the grave,
by which, I think...I know myself?

No...I don't think I really want this...

not a shiver, runs through me.
But, sue me...for looking,
when she's so ******* juicy...
does it consume me?
Does it titillate me?
...I don't feel me, hyperventilating?

What if she turned, to face me?
To lay me, lace me
between her thighs...
internalized; eternal lies,
to sate me,
with her flavor, to bait me
acerbic, and savory...
Her skin, burning, like a lamp wire,

and her fingertips, debasing me.
What if I, was her vampire,
and she,
the one slaying me?
A slaking queen...
aching to break, her thirst...
so, what if I staked her, first...?
Would she mortify,
like ash?
Or would she forge, a lighted path,
and make me wish,
she had, forced...my hand?

No...I don't think I really want this...

not a shiver, runs through me.
But, sue me...for looking,
when she's so ******* juicy.

. (or: how I taught him to ruin me properly) .

His mouth was a chalice filled with thunder—
I drank from it like a man who’s forgotten
how to refuse ceremony.

He said my name like it was a title he meant to inherit.
Not whispered. Not begged.
Claimed.

I took him the way ruins take ivy—
slowly, wholly, letting him crawl through my cracks
and make green what should have stayed dead.

He undressed like it was a coup:
first the belt, then the silence,
then the smirk that knew it had already won.

I touched him like I’d memorized him in a past life
and forgot I was the one meant to teach.

My hands shook.
He steadied them with his teeth.

Skin against skin,
I forgot which of us was ancient.
His body: a question I answered with every bruise.
Mine: a confession disguised as architecture.

I marked him with softness.
He returned it with hunger.

“Slower,” I breathed.
“Why?” he replied.
And there was no answer
that didn't sound like surrender.

We moved like two wolves trying not to pray.
Every gasp a liturgy.
Every ****** a reformation.

I let him trace my scars like roads on a forgotten map.
He said, “You’ve been here before.”
I said, “And I never left.”

Later, he wore my shirt.
Not out of affection—
but to study the shape of power
from the inside.

. (or: the god who called me “sir”) .

He entered like a prophecy mispronounced—
storm-soaked, sky-buttoned,
his coat dragging dusk across the floorboards,
eyes lit like stolen copper.

My drink was a cathedral of neglect—
neat bourbon, no ice,
echoing the taste of promises embalmed in dust.
I drank the same way I pray:
sparingly, and to a god I no longer trust.

He didn’t sit; he disrupted.
Barstools shifted like tectonics,
shadows coiled around his boots,
and the jukebox skipped a beat to watch him move.

“You look like someone who’s been patient too long,”
he said, voice lacquered in soft thunder,
vowels curling like smoke from a burnt vow.

I gave him my laugh—
a cracked heirloom I no longer polish.
He wore it like cologne
and leaned in as if to inhale the ruin.

His hands were myths retold badly—
trembling between gentleness and guillotine.
He touched the rim of my glass
like it was my mouth,
and drank it wrong—
reckless, like he’d never been told no
and didn’t believe in scarcity.

The night flexed around us.
My watch stopped ticking.
Time, the faithful beast I’d trained
to lie at my feet,
lifted its head and whimpered.

"we are not a phase"
they had told us
to whisper our pronouns
hide our true colours painted on flags
like shame folds easier
than truth.

they say,
"love has rules"
but only when it looks
a certain way,
and we never looked
they way they had wanted,
the way they expected us to be.

but we exist
in full colour --
in quiet,
soft,
gentle first kisses,
in second glances that were held
a little too long by most,
in the hands that tremble
but still reach.

we are not a debate.
we are certainly not a phase.
we are stories
that are still being written,
in chalk
on our skin,
in protest,
and in poems.

and when they try to erase us,
who we are,
we come back.
louder.
softer.
screaming for rights.
still here.

Purple neon on my shoulders,
Blue catching on my knees,
I’m looking for something to cure my craving
And I know that it cannot be me.

Bend me over,
Tell me that you see me,
Know that when it’s over
I’ll want you even when I’m sober.

Purple haze dancing in my mind
Blue skies over the skyline
I’m high with a need for a taste.

Won’t you come and take it,
Won’t you make me beg for more?
I’m trying to feel the warmth
Of someone who can lift me higher
Then I can touch the ceiling
Push me into a corner
Don’t let me forget this feeling.

Purple neon on my shoulders
Blue catching my knees,
Open mouth begging, please
Won’t you show me heaven,
One sinful act at a time?

Tell me do you see me,
Am I still a man to you,
Is this worth the trouble,
Silent my troubled mind
Bathe me in purple and blue,
Tell me I belong,
Are you mine?

Purple haze dancing in my mind
Blue skies over the skyline,
I’m high with a need for a taste.

Bi like cotton candy,
Sweeter than taffy lace
Harder than jawbreaker,
Alive in me I embrace.

I sit by the shore with sand in my hands,
thinking of him, then thinking of her.
His smile is kind, his words are sweet,
but never makes the water stir.

She walks in like a storm I want,
with eyes that pull like undertow.
I'd drown so gladly in her gaze
and come up breathless just to know.

Boys are boats - safe, expected and still.
But girls? They're waves that don't forgive.
And I have feared, with aching truth,
that this is how I will always live.

Loving the ocean more than the shore-and longing for what wrecks me more.