#09-2021

my reflection is the heat of a stranger's body clinging to a subway seat. the mirror holds a husk, something warm that moves, and i don't know her beyond the skin. watch this stranger holding my brothers, my lovers' hands, inhabiting my life. watch this empty one move her soft body, watch her frame herself, watch her fingers slip over her skin like expensive silk. i love her. i love her like a lover, like an art work, like nothing a self should be.

the skin, the interface between body and soul, between the imaged self and performed, the canvas for becoming somebody, intentional action. being does not mean being someone. a body doesnt give you somebody privileges.

the skin, the screen, to press our hands against from either side and hope a message gets through. i don't know if this membrane is keeping out or keeping in. i feel it like plastic wrap.

the skin we share; i can't breathe through it.

i love her like she wants to. i love her like the voyeur. i love her like the eyes that watch her when she's alone. i love her like an audience.

between us is a load bearing wall, we are catercornered and bonded by tensed legs. my skin lies below hers, pink and raw but real, mine, and when you touch her, i can so nearly imagine what she feels. all of your love for me lands at her feet, when you look at me it's over-the-clothes, she's unraptured, i envy her shoes. i fear that if you saw me unhidden you wouldn't recognise me, this wouldn't be the one you know, ive been watching you two from the closet... there are rats in the walls of my wooden horse.

it's a plastic bag pulled over my head. i can't get clean.

i would rather not buy a puzzle at all, than solve it and have to look at the gaping wound in the picture where a piece should lay. than have to look at the table below, harsh contrast. black hole. the other pieces fall in.

id rather press with my full weight against a spike mat, than a single nail.

i will never get to experience the right childhood, all the formative events. i was a gentle boy, when the others playing football i was learning to knit, when they were playing pokemon cards i was helping in the kitchen. there's something missing, in a lack of scars from foolhardy adventures, of bones broken by reckless ambition, of bruised knuckles and black eyes, in being a gentle boy that learned to be a rough girl.

i fear that opening the pandoras' box will hurt more than wondering what's in it. a life spent in this dark room, clawing at the light leaking through the doorframe gaps, what could it possibly give to unlock it, to shed light on the chamber at my back?

i fear that my hunger cannot be sated, and in this, bread will only deepen my nausea.

i fear that it will all be beautiful and ripped away from my dulled claws.

is it not just easier to close my eyes when i walk by a puzzlebox, a nail jar, a door, a still lake?

can you blame me, wouldn't you do the same?

the safety of familiarity, of the known, is such a luxury; to throw it away would be ungrateful.

salt your wounds and get up. sourced from the finest of seas, the medi-tear-ranean, framed by eastuaries of the rivers flowing down your cheeks. jokes aside, boys don't cry. salt your wounds and get up.

what a naive child you were, to think that running means they won't chase you. they know where you live. they have your number. your mind plays in their voices. you're not strong enough, i hope you know this, that a moment of clarity doesn't turn blood into crystal, wine into water. but rest; rest in the cold, under the stars, rest until the wolves catch up and corner you. rest.

every wound can unheal. remember this, that your seams are just that, and a thread can be pulled, weaved in ends can be unravelled, remember, remember... you will come apart.

i'm built out of driftwood and i scream in the wind and my blood runs through bark beetle trails and i am strung up and forgotten and the storm runs through my body like we were made for one another and im listening to the tchk-tchk-tchk bounce off the bed chamber walls in your heart and merge with the dripping roof

there was a time when brackish waters wet behind my ears—now im just the wet-boy of your wet dreams watching you stand on the beach with cold feet and colder metal against your temple and i shouldn't (not with the safety off) but i cant help but wonder what bites are your favourite, if it's the steel or mine

i want you to know: i notice when your mother uses the wrong words, even though she shouldn't anymore. i notice when you slip up and use hers. i notice when you look at me like you hope you taste skinnier, my diet honey, same sweet taste with none of the sugar.

all the times ive received apologies i didnt ask for, for bodies i didn't notice. a volunteered apology is the best clandestine vessel for shame on the market. contrition itself is the song of liturgy, of ignominy like they teach you. hide it like a pill in a dog bowl, like food in a toy box, like the tear-stained farewell letters that you couldn't quite bear to get rid of, scribbled by a child you got to know posthumously.

pictures ive taken

that don't really tell anyone about anything

words ive spoken

that didn't really hold true.

i am

in a forest, freedom by virtue of being caged in, nature, berce-le chaudement, peace of being home again. i am where i was born and where i will die. currently, i'm running from both. the cold is a refreshing one, of autumn and pink cheeks and full breaths.

i am

in a bustling city, cold cold cobble under my feet, in a room where turning the heat up all the way just means you don't freeze to death. where the cars are loud and my soul is not and i wonder how ill ever survive in this, in a world where this is where everyone goes. where this is not temporary. the cold is a hospital one. of distance and death.