try to love him:
his tan expanses,
tight muscle,
body like a cocked gun -
'shoot me,
shoot me!'
lock eyes and exhale
because you feel like you're finally home -
settle to the bottom of his ocean
and never once question
what it might feel like to float.
just try -
squeeze your eyes tight shut
and tense your muscles
and take a deep breath
and plunge.
but fuck it,
i cannot write love poetry about boys
because somehow my metaphors
always end in death and
i guess that says a lot about me -
people say a lot about me,
letters of the alphabet
come together in their ugliest forms
and that's when they spit it out.
just spit it out.
but i stutter on the first letter
and you wrap your arms around me,
push up against my ribcage
and thrust it up my throat.
i'll still write poetry about you
even when my throat burns
and my sides are bruised
and you spell out D-Y-K-E
in lipstick in the toilets
and i guess that says a lot about me,
but it also says a lot about you -
i cannot write poetry about boys,
and sometimes i wish i couldn't write it about you, either.
