Microculture: Hookup

My body.
His body.
You can't make a house become a home.

angerprayer

Dear God,

I come to you a humble queer
Who doesn't visit your house too often
I come to you as Lilith's blood and Adam's clay
Holding a prayer for protection
Between my folded hands
I come to you afraid

I am scared because
There are people who know you well
Liberated by your love
That want to bind people like me in law
They imprison my skin in paper
They pollute my blood with ink

They speak in two tongues
Shifting their words in doublespeak
We are (not) here to punish you
We are here to protect our beliefs
But when it comes time to pay the price
They never offer up their own tithes
They gather their money
From the pockets of our lives

What does their protection look like for me?
How does their protection play out in my community?

I still fall in love with men who are scared to touch me
With men who replace romance with repentance
I am not blood and body when they look at me
I am sermon and hellfire
I am the cold condemnation of a pew on Wednesday night and Sunday morning
I am goat and serpent
I am an empty vessel hollowed out for vicarious atonement

They demonize me for fucking
When honestly
Most of the time
I'm just working up the nerve
To hold a lover's hand
In front of a public
Who celebrates me
Only
When I feel sad and gay enough
To write a poem about it

They don't treat me like a person
They treat me like a lesson
And they pay for their tuition
From the pockets of my life

Dear God,
I didn't bring you offering
I didn't bring you tithes
I come to you angry as hell
With a question tucked within my clenched fists.
Who needs protection from who?
Who needs protection from who?

Amen,
Amen,
Amen.

motherson

We are before and after

On the mirror edge

Of time and space

Of gene and code

And chromosome

We a closed loop

A dragon swallowing

His own tail

A story told

Over and oral

Spiraling

Inside of time

Outside of control

A glitch in the message

Forms a bubble of half-truths

To burst from our vague belief

I am not the son or daughter you wanted

But I am the son or daughter you got

Bred into a lesson to be learned

Raised into a mistake not to be repeated

As I watched you love

So I learned the lesson

As I watched you break

So I learned to piece myself together again

The first time a man broke my heart you told me:

“Your capacity to forgive is far stronger

Than any harm a man could cause you.”

A bubbling half-truth

Mom.

You forgot to tell me that I didn't need to go around

trying to prove that to myself.

But I think you forgot to tell yourself the same thing.

I have never had a man

Stand over me with a knife

In his hand yelling about

How he won't be played

Like a small child

While he throws

A temper tantrum

Like a small child

How you told me

At the core

Of every small child

Is someone who needs to be held

You were never around to hold me

Like Madonna held her child

You just checked in on me

Every now and again

To give me advice

Even as I try to move further from your way of life

I am pulled back closer to you

Like Eve to Adam's rib

We are bound

By genetic purpose

To achieve the same fate

Spiraling into control.

But I am hoping

Through glitch and half-truth

To break the system

Undo our programming

Because further along in the origin

Someone convinced us

That the only thing worth living for in this life

Was the struggle of being loved

I am tired of struggling.

Break my rib. Cough up blood. Gasp for air.

You gave birth to me.

But I will teach you how

To be born

Again.

warlove

When love became a war
Our beds became a battleground
What landmines will I find
In the folds of your sheet
Tonight
Under cover of my endless
Lavender night
I turn my face away
From the pale moonlight
So my face can't betray
My intelligence
While we negotiate
Our treaties
Under cover of bad faith

We construct our contracts
In a language
Inspired not
By the Spirit
Of consolidation
But out of fear
Of being deserted
By our allies

When love became a war
There was no communication
Just espionage
There was strategic truth-telling
Strategic omissions of crucial
Information
Neglecting to tell
Each other what we know
Of our tactical formations
What general assumptions we
Had laid out based on the
Kernels of information
Our scouts had gathered
Under cover of a lavender night
Now the ghosts of our allies
Whisper the truths
We neglected to tell
Like the smell of lavender
Burning softly in the night

When love became a war
We rationed our affections
Treated love like
An exhaustible resource
When we really we
Were the only ones
Who were exhausted
When we took a sip
Of the love we knew
It did not taste
Like water in our mouths
It tasted like wondering
Where we could find
The next oasis
Wandering aimlessly
In the desert ruins
Of a civilization
That a spoke a language
That we used to know

When love became a war
There was no healing
There was just triage
Tying tourniquets
Around old and open wounds
No resolution
Just a sense of urgency
When we needed
Open heart surgery
To show us how
To beat inside
A rib cage softly
Our priority system
was red, yellow, green

Red:
Alleviate this urgency.
Please don't fail me

Yellow:
Take your time
Come back to me
When you have some to spare

Green:
I have to move on
There is nothing here
All patients can't be
Saved.

Microculture: Arrival

Finally home
My best friend
Picks me up from the terminal
And drops me off at home
I open the door
And I'm greeted by someone I love
Someone that I want to love
Someone that I am trying to love

He is looking at me
Through my mirror
And is eyes say
Welcome home.

Microculture: Bus Ride

Sitting on the bus
Watching people
Unpack their baggage
And unload their stories
Onto their seats
Into the ears
Of the people who listen
Or want to listen
Or are trying to listen.

Microculture: Bus Stop

I'm waiting for my bus
On a cloudy day in Atlanta
Raindrops ripple into puddles on the curb
Cars ride along the highway
Like abacus beads being pulled
Along their thread
Counting down the time
Before they return home
To someone they love
Or someone they want to love
Or someone they are trying to love.