He told me that no one could spell his last name, but I printed it in the folds of my brain.
Summer Boy who’s never sun-burnt, he’s apricot juice and kiwi flesh that drips from sleepy eyes,
I longed for brown eyes when I was younger, wanted desperately to blend in,
But he said I was his rainstorm and picked blueberries in the corners of my mind.
I’ve found my brown eyes, and I keep them in my mind; they're molasses in my dreams
And devour me softly in the night.
His skin became the refuge of the sun, covered in angel kisses, smells of sea foam, and thick humidity. He’s burnt toast in the morning, school lunch in the afternoon, ocean depths, and salt water in his bed.
His heart pours into mine and speaks a primal language, it’s not spoken nor written, but communicated by eyes and mouth, saliva and pomegranate juice, salt that dissolves into ice water, spring blooms and cold nights after the sunset dripped from breathless phrases and became a thick pool of bloated cherry bushes.
He grew up a low tide. He was a lazy curtain of white beads that stretched for miles, a vast mind that spoke in ones and zeros, that was laid out like a row of cables. His bone marrow didn't drip out, but cascaded in a line. He’s never been good with words, he could never light matches with his monotone song.
He thought his heart couldn’t beat, said there was a hole in it, not in the longing way, but in the factual way. He referenced the trench that lay from his neck to his stomach, the galaxy of daisies that had rudely intruded on his garden.
He wanted warm breezes that swayed hammocks in meadows of sunflowers and dandelions, and a life where the only troubles were picking out the dead stars from bunches.
But he thought he was too busy for that.
I grew up a wild thing, an animal who hunted and preyed at the ledge of sewn-up bruises lipstick stains written confessions boys who drift through reality like ghosts, never alive, and phrases only said in the heat of the moment, I held onto them until I burned silver, my hands the resting place of charcoal stakes, a vivisection of obsession, put out quick
I wanted violence
to bleed brilliant blue to be given bruises and blisters,
Peeled, thrown to the floor, pleaded, thrown to the floor, peeled until I was hollow, nothing to give except my rind
I’m spoiled half-eaten teeth rotten I bite too hard I’ve allowed myself to die I’m a scared dog, I’m a weed plucked continuously, head grabbed, brains blown in hopes of wishes being granted.
As I scream and cry and bite, he sits and waits. Knits sweaters out of simplicity, untangles my tired limbs into daisy chains, plants forget-me-nots around each of my organs, and tells me about his world:
Stardust fallen, mixed with glitter, wheezing blue, clear glass, broken by a string of white lace.
He buried his dreams in the sand, stars stuck to his hands with salt water and sunburnt shoulders, fingertips of deep charcoal.
His acts of rebellion, quickly extinguished and planted in sand.
He asked me to help find them, under sediment, broken shells, dreams of a million other little boys, and far until the land is ink and the stardust gone.
He pictured me, blemished shoulders, his skin permanently mine, my voice in the same melody as his, standing in his ocean, one that isn’t tar but nectar, next to him, blue hands pulling us deep under its warmth and
he spun pictures out of gold strings and rose petals, painted a life for us, every primary used, not just blue and
he handed me this painting, and I embroidered my heart into the margins, and framed it on our wall and
so I will sing our shared language as loud as my lungs can breathe, let his ocean sit deep in my belly, I’ll let him in, I’ll stay in his garden.
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