#wrt

always takes me a second to clock that “wrt” means “with regards to” and isn’t just like. a sound effect. 💢WIRT!💢

i like his arms a lot, for no particular reason. he's not bulky or even lean. he's quite pale, that farmer's tan peeking out underneath his short-sleeved tees. i guess i just can't stop staring at the downy layer on each smooth, thick forearm. they're soft to the touch; he's no hard laborer. his hands are the same, if a little damper. they lead down to fingernails that are a little too long. "cut them," i tease. he says he should. haven't checked if he has yet.

oh to be a suburban boy in the early 2000s falling in love with another suburban boy over summer vacation, kissing in liminal spaces like the stairwell of the maisonette he and his family grew up in, by the chainlink fences of restricted areas that you’re too tempted by to heed the signs that say not to enter, by the dim porch light while sitting on the kitschy little bench your parents put out front. being on the beach with the sand biting your ass and the net of your trunks itching your junk, collecting mole crabs and trapping them in a red solo cup as kelp tries to drag you back into the waves you were hopping earlier. going for a swim in one of your friend’s apartment complex’s pool and chowing down on a costco pizza and one of those small pack of chips, maybe a handful of grapes. you throw a green one into his open maw because he said he can catch things in his mouth. a six-pack of heineken a rebel in your group stole from his dad gets all of your adolescent bodies tipsy. camping, but it’s not really camping because your aunt or uncle or cousin of some sort has an RV that they’re taking you out in, and they say to invite a friend, so you invite him. you cram into one level of them suffocating bunks and put the right earbud into your head, the left into his, and you listen to limp bizkit and korn and system of a down and deftones together until the sun comes up. on that sleep-deprived morning hike, you pick an orange poppy and put it behind his ear. your relatives call him ‘pretty’ as a joke, because boys can’t be pretty, right? you’d realize in hindsight that they definitely can be.

enn, with his hands behind his back, his nose in the air; with greasy hair and in need of a haircut; in nice dress shoes, straight-leg pants; testing vowels carefully with his mouth in that soft murmur without realizing it. he looks at you and you're not sure what to do with your hands, because he's being all coy with that little pull of his lips. you say, yeah, that's good, and he smiles because he likes praise, always preening for compliments. he soaks up the lights, basks in attention, and you wonder if you're just another sunbeam.