#nta
So it took me twelve months,
fifty-something weeks,
to understand that someone you want to sleep with
isn't the same as someone you want to wake up beside
You've said it yourself that you enjoy waking with me
taking the smallest sliver of your bed
(and if I take more, I'll hear about it come sun rise
and our laughter will chime)
Not only am I yours, but you are mine.
Jan 31, 2021
Jan 31, 2021 at 1:15 PM UTC
The boy who clicks off the light, reads on the couch, to let sleep consume me-- or who reads beside me, metal-frames dipping low
while his eyes pour over the page.
The boy who tucks me in, acquiescing the blanket softer than peach fuzz-- like the ambrosial peaches his grandmother gifted him in the winter and he shared sweet.
The boy who always makes sure to kiss me good-bye
and fills the room with jazzy notes-- because they represent me,
though he never liked jazz much at all before.
The boy who asked me to wake him if I go somewhere because he'd prefer me to remain beside him, but he understands I have things I need to do, so he cannot always wake beside me,
a weight he can handle.
It does not match the boy who told me he does not love me,
though he likes me, and I am haunted by hollow translations
that force me to delicately dance around a swear word in the
English language like "love".
It does not match the boy who said we wouldn't have much of a relationship without *** and I am haunted by uncertainties of my convenience that force me to stumble with the hope that our
past does not define our present.
How I feel about you, through my actions, through my words, are truer than any logic, but that might not matter
because the boy does not want to hear words that have
a weight greater than he can handle.
Dec 14, 2020
Dec 14, 2020 at 9:25 AM UTC
What does it matter if I chose to wear a ring
Silver and cold-blooded, fought hard to receive
To symbolize the one coiled around my heart
If I chose to order a drink
Of the poem you recite with smile and splendor
To symbolize you, miles away, my new year’s wish
If I chose to remain in your bed that morning
After your insensitive and heart-constricting decision
to symbolize a commitment to communication and forgiveness
If I chose to lock eyes and arms with you
In a hall teeming with energy contradictory to the average age
To symbolize overwriting painful past through contraband
What does it matter that I chose you
Implicitly and explicitly and wholly
if you didn’t choose me?
Jun 21, 2020
Jun 21, 2020 at 9:19 PM UTC
Heaven mend my heart
for it longs even when he is near,
painful to merely glance upon his learned silhouette
knowing it will soon disappear
For this feels like a pressing punishment
for an ineluctable sin so divine
as to adore another so selflessly
sustaining only by the privilege to christen him mine
Heaven mend my heart!
for it anguishes even when he is far,
Lord, I love him
please do not make us part
Jun 16, 2020
Jun 16, 2020 at 11:36 PM UTC
If a boy falls in love with a boy
and no one is around to hear it
does the boy really love at all?
But once the sound carries
and electrical pulses transfer
encoded messages are decrypted
and interpretation can never be taken back
But reign in the words
and clutch them tightly to your chest
and bite your tongue lest they escape
and interpretation can never be taken back
If a boy falls in love with a boy
and he does not want to hear it
was there ever any love at all?
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 7:41 PM UTC
I was going to compose a parallel poem
mirroring the ways you show you care
but you have made it evident
that I will never be your home.
You would
thoughtfully answer my never-ending stream of questions
carry me to bed with a blissful blanket of sleep and softness
grant me the honor of wearing anything you owned, and smile at my choices
actively correspond with me, more in the span of a few weeks than your standard for a lifetime
trust me to take care of your bright-green banana-of-a-boy
assist and twist and crack my spine further
track and plot my heartrate to find a trend in tempo and tone
and always provide the nearness I need to breathe
and feel
and be
myself.
I did not need to pen a poem
to know that you care, albeit reticent
but you have made it evident
that I will never be your home.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 10:59 PM UTC
I would
eat the squishy grapes for you
warm your cold hands
share with you the last of my rice and beans
massage your stiff neck
get up from comfort to pour you a glass of cool water
assist and twist and crack your spine further
treat you to your favorite ramen, donating my extra noodles
tiptoe across the creaky floorboards to not stir you
and always give you the space you need to breathe
and feel
and be
yourself.
May 26, 2020
May 26, 2020 at 4:23 PM UTC
Sunlight streaks in, gold and sharp,
One blanket is tossed to the floor,
The other is wrapped around you, tangled in your legs.
You stretch beyond the scope of the bed,
Disorientedly breathe the early morning in,
And cover me with blanket seized in your sleep.
I am draped, like royalty, only in the finest,
Your arm adorns and grounds me.
I understand your appreciation for weighted blankets.
My mind cannot wander or worry or plot my demise in your arms.
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 11:14 PM UTC
Hovering just above the edge of gratification,
a curtain encases our very breath,
deliberate, slow brushes, indulging in each other's grins,
hungrily straining to collide, to connect,
impassioned heat emanates from skin to heart, heart to skin.
This cannot be a sin.
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 3:49 PM UTC
I have never seen the dawn,
Daylight breaking over the boundary between dark and light,
Though I know that with it comes
A crispness of the air
A hushed silence across the world
A sense of awe
A hope for an uprising of humanness
As the light shatters the anguish of yesterday.
I have never seen the dawn,
But I have seen you sleep soundly
In the dimmest of hues and the brightest of rays
Yet you always shine the most brilliantly
The cool air kisses you sweetly
The battle-scarred child nature sings you lullabies
The interwoven-vines protect you
And the sun and moon are humbled by your grace.
I have never seen the dawn,
But I have seen you sleep soundly,
And through you I know what the dawn brings.
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 6:39 PM UTC
You grace me with
lightness, bright mornings, cool breezes,
darkness, soft notes, flickering candle flames,
warmth from gentle sun's rays, highlighting text,
and the curve of your spine as you stretch across the sheets.
I have never known peace like this.
This is as true as my heart beating double-time to yours.
I spill words of trauma and loneliness,
of fear, and hate, and years of bottled
up bruises.
I know the stories I convey hurt you,
leave you speechless and unsure how to console me,
But I have never felt safe enough
To flood the world with these confessions
Before I met you.
Your palms apply pressure,
reassurance from an outstretched hand
to a simple ruffle of my hair,
and the empathy runs over from your eyes,
unable to fathom
a child taught respect by fire, threatened with severe burns to be molded, controlled, manipulated,
a child taught their worthlessness by begging for forgiveness,
rejected pleas leaving tear-stained innocence,
imprinting guilt far below just the superficial skin,
You ache for this pain of mine to dull and fade,
translated through the embrace of me into your time and space, mind and body.
I have never known love like this.
This is as true as your heart beating half-time to mine,
So why can't I tell you that I love you?
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020 at 7:08 PM UTC
I write you love poems
Because I need to shape the tumultuous feelings
That occupy my heart and head
At all hours of dawn and day.
The words beg to spill out.
Mar 21, 2020
Mar 21, 2020 at 9:25 PM UTC
If I had my way,
I would craft words that sway
your heart and mind to think of
me
as consumed in thought as I am of
you.
Mar 21, 2020
Mar 21, 2020 at 9:10 PM UTC
Two day ago in therapy I wrote you a love poem:
A physics equation quantifying the emotional clarity that is brought by your proximity,
With love as a fundamental constant and a scalar summation of circumstances' mental momentum.
The next evening,
You told me you were going to sleep with a friend,
But the thought of sharing you makes me viscerally sick,
But worse is the ache, the knowledge
That you crave their touch too.
It's a slither underneath my ribs,
Tensing pressure that constricts my lungs and crushes the bone,
Venom through my veins,
Stopping at my heart.
But,
Love is constant,
Love is kind.
And, god, I've fallen in love with a selfish serpent.
Jan 29, 2020
Jan 29, 2020 at 2:05 AM UTC
Every inhale can overload my brain with the rich scent,
Of skin, of strength.
There are mornings where you are all I taste,
And my head is overwhelmed by you consuming every sense.
Jan 11, 2020
Jan 11, 2020 at 10:59 AM UTC
Before the floor creaks and groans,
Before either of us wake with a smile or a sigh,
(Before it's too bright for you to say "I need to buy some curtains!")
It rushes by, whipping the wind,
In an explosive noise against rails older than us,
But I am not sure if the sound arises
From it slicing through the air, or
From it forcing a new pattern of breath in the wake of its motion.
But,
Before the floor creaks and groans,
Before you wake with a smile or a sigh,
Before it's too bright, too chilly, or too late- no, just right
I rest my head against your chest
And I can hear the tracks
The gentle thrum and hum and shake,
Beating at a constant rate.
I am breathless with gratitude that I caught this train on time.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 1:16 PM UTC