Boy, I Think I Want to Love You

I unfold from every side

at that grazing knee or

gentle elbow,

A morbid splash

of blood and pus and black and bile

A mass of dark, bitter hues

wet

with regret

at your feet

on your pedestal

​

Since when did I love like this?

​

Undo myself with the ghosts

of your hands

​

Like this?

​

Submit myself to the grainy cross

of your inner

god

of a god that's you

of a you that's right

next to me,

holy

and untouchable

boy

boy

boy

of a me who seeks your

touch

anguished by accidental

brush

of skin

of flesh

of bone

inside

and

out

Teach me

​

how to get closer to you

​

Do you care

if I root myself

in the soles of your feet?

​

Can I grow

like vines

along your vessels,

flowing against the contours of your skin?

​

Don't say no.

​

My own bones don’t know how to hold you

they shiver and creak

with utter panic

At what I've done

At the private mess that is

this seeping heart

At your shifting body

on my bed

bowing to make room for you

pressure building in the atoms

branches in a storm that don't break

just bend

mold to new shapes

A transformative growth that's

too giving

too giddy

too honest

too

present

​

I don’t know how to feel this.

​

Distant, silent suffering has never seemed

so loud

so absurd

so impossibly pathetic

​

I don’t know how to feel this.

​

I wiped away the sticky half-ring of black coffee

you left on my copy of Crush

With a tissue

And a little bit of spit

And I wonder

if I can do the same to you

Maybe,

I can wipe away the way your presence sticks

to my skin

With poems like this

And a little bit of distance

expel you from the white-hard room

of my bones

suck them dry of your wild humidity

like timber for the icy fire

I tend in my belly

unfeeling, tolerable

Where there is lonely safety

Where there is numb freedom

Where there is counterfeit joy

But

Where there is no pale boy with lawless bands of freckles

Imperfectly straightened teeth, and rowdy, dark hair

who sits on my bed, laughing loudly at something

I’ve said,

while I try my hardest to walk the line,

sitting close enough

to sense his heat,

but not to touch him,

leaning in close enough

to see those freckles in the dim light,

but not to kiss them,

a friendly distance

staring at his face just long enough

to glimpse what could be.

​

​

PDF link (please look at this because the formatting I did is kind of important to the poem)

Audio Recording Link (not amazing quality, but just to give y'all a feel of how I'd read it)

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