There is a self-assurance when driving alone in a car,
A broken leather bag tossed in the passenger seat, sunset at his back,
Sweat pooling under his shirt at the valley below his chest;
Earbuds pressed as far as they’ll go in
Blocking out violent winds as he goes over a perfectly photographed bridge
Fog rolling in over waves and through the painted orange beams of streetlights
He is living in someone else’s fantasy:
dressed to the nines,
the eights,
the sevens
Counting down shirt buttons to the way his belt sits a little too loose around his hips,
Black undershirt and unauthorized jeans smelling like stale convenience-store coffee
And strange sanitized emotions that unkempt grocery stores bring to mind--
He is beaming and
Expressing the love he has for this moment in the purest way he knows how.
He doesn’t believe that it is a singularity, an expression of a single thing
A tangle of words that knot into something unnervingly detached from
What he knows how to wrap someone else in with trained fingers
Under the guise of practice
Love is something he has found is undefined
He is not sure he believes in a staying love.
It comes and goes as it pleases in the moment,
It is the word he leaves reserved for the way yellow makes him feel;
How he felt when he saw green as green as green could be through rose-tinted glasses;
The steam rising from named coffee mugs, light streaming through windows;
It is the word he felt when he fell asleep entangled in someone else’s arms and legs
Socks kicked off at the ankles,
And in the sudden realization that he wanted soup;
In seeing painted purple pauses in thought scattered across his chest and shoulders;
In moth wings and bee stings, in smiles and kissing curiosity
It is an emotion he can’t take ownership of
Rather, it is something that dunks him into a washing machine and
Cleans him of the exhaustion that sinks into the minds of men who don’t cry
Honey-colored bubbles rising from bent fingers and wide eyes
Like jellyfish that don’t know any better than to pop when they reach the surface
Of water below a perfectly photographed bridge.
