I see these two faggots
holding hands
as I walk down the street
and I just stand there, rubbernecking
like I’m witnessing a six-car pileup
or a trapeze act
or a lynching.
as I take half a drag before
I complete the exchange
and cough out tar and phlegm
and maybe a little blood.
chemical comforts,
have conspired with the (E(Go)d)
I persist to worship
and confirmed that the Will to Burn
that has led me
to your doorstep
at four o’clock
on a Bible Black
Monday morning,
is a truer form of misfit love
than theirs.
I brandish my cigarette
like a baton outside your window,
conducting a stagnant symphony
with fiery flourishes
for your absentee audience.
Not satisfied with simply playing lead,
I attempt to extrapolate the master score.
But I have misinterpreted
my inherited trills and crescendos
as a license to rewrite the whole fucking piece
in my own image
as unresponsive row-homes
and vacant, tree-lined streets
look on in vague disinterest.
I gaze up at your third-story window
in hopes that you’ll look down
to discover me there
walking past accidentally-on-purpose
on my way home from God-knows-where.
you’d probably see nothing
but a smokestack
click-clacking down the street
in time with the music in his head.
And would you know
that you’re standing in a room
right next door to another lover,
a ghost with a bigger room
and a bigger bed?
I hate to wonder if there’s still room for you here, and visa versa.
But I have to make sense
Of all the drivel in my head
Because…
Jesus,
I swear you meant the world to me
When I watched you there on my couch
Curled up in my brown jacket,
Eyes closed, lips pursed.
In an instant,
in a dream,
all of my lovers share the same bed
in that room at the end of your hall,
ABC & D,
My thin-lipped toothless grin and
those two men on the street.
And suddenly
there’s room for one more,
or none at all.
