I mirror my desire,

but my desuetude is too sour and soft

to understand the shape of my own footprints.

A promise coeval with my birth, like

some

sparkling dimple

in a black, glitter-filled sky -

a mistake of the mind,

a rare find

of a boy

bejeweled and glued to a

hanging disc

swinging with his sleepless eyelids.

I could say that I remember everything,

that it all started with

a

light

fixture

buzzing

amber-yellowish highlights onto my face

in a hotel bathroom

where I stood slightly naked in front of the mirror of my own

desire - another form

of you,

and manhood

to fold me

into shapes and colors,

remnants of

the glow in my eyes

sweltering high above me.

I am a mirror of memory,

sensory, the perception of language

as a noise without understanding,

but movement is the pleasure

of hiding (the cartilage behind my hip bones,

the structure

that glues me together

like a skinned

skeleton)

coeval with words; from a childhood of loss -

it frightens me

to fall asleep when

the year is so early,

the self-decency of you getting the truck fixed,

the restraint of doorways, holding

hands, curved, sounds

in the palms of wrists

and joints

to the bones that dovetail.

This is what it means to be without you;

to fetter into angles unknown,

attention to my sore muscles,

fight with you, the sight of me

in the mirror,

the bulb

burning

or the house on fire across the street,

my fingers pulling drapes open

to watch through thick glass

and pass the news over noise -

do we even speak words?

Or do our faces just spark

in understanding, a remedy

that relies on itself too closely.

And what are ends - ?

the course threads of our connection,

an election of minds

(and bodies)

coddled like wily dew drops

the way cold forms stick to the sheets

to remind us of the shape we took.

The newness.

The dead effect.

A union spreading lifeless offspring

and closed eyes; violent, haphazardes, and yet

I cling to it like a babe to the foreign breast of masculinity,

the man I love,

the thoughts, I shove away

from perspectives, how to swim

through the bathwater without you

in the next room,

how to stand in front of the mirror with wet hair and skin,

a girl can be more naked

without someone else

then she ever will be without clothes.

But, I'm a keyhole

that you pressed your dark eye to,

look through, embezzle,

and croon - safety being like saltwater

lapped across my open veins on waves

that only bring bad news,

of you

and of us

(through the transparency

I desire

all

that

I do

not

have.)

Anymore.