"It's between polyamory and prostate milking."
every so often i remember
the night i sat on the mattress
on the floor of your flat,
the Staunton streetlights
sliding in through the window
and over and across
my winter skin, the night
when my tongue had jostled
and jittered around
one too many
jokes, and
they might have been in poor taste,
I’ll admit, but I swear
they were just jokes,
even after the dull and distant
panic sank in as you said
You were through supplying
me with booze,
and sure,
it’s Your prerogative,
and sure,
i should simply do without,
but where else was i gonna get it?
So i may have been
kidding on the level,
may have been skirting
carelessly around half truths,
sure they’d make You skiddish
if i dropped them out my mouth
hard and heavy, to shatter
on the linoleum floor
like a half-full bottle
falling from my
typically shaky hand,
which never happened.
Maybe i knew,
As i always do,
it was safer to slide them
smooth under the radar,
get them counted as
ian being his silly self,
counted as usual,
which they were,
and ‘cause some things
are funny
‘cause they’re true.
And/or maybe i was taking refuge
in potentially calamitous chemicals,
maybe i was playing a dangerous game,
as i do, but i knew
what i was doing,
as i do, knew as always,
how much and how far and how long
and how to play it safe
and still find
my slow and certain way
to just the right barely-there buzz,
just the right warmth and the warning light
in my head goes out,
knew my limits,
but apparently not Yours.
So You said i’d stop,
and i did, like that,
sitting slumped on the spare mattress,
so still, and that was when
the certainty come over me,
as it will, every now and then,
from then on,
that those things and those ones
i let myself love will
inevitably
leave,
and i know
when i said it
with tears sliding silently
down my face,
pooling beneath my chin,
and i wouldn’t wipe them away,
i know how it sounded
but it was a starkly rational realization,
no meaningless emotional babble
as i hit bottom,
it was true with a capital T,
true of You as much as of me,
and i blamed neither of us for it,
but i still remember,
relive the realization anew,
and each time,
each time,
though i wouldn’t know
how to say it,
i think of You.
the night i sat on the mattress
on the floor of your flat,
the Staunton streetlights
sliding in through the window
and over and across
my winter skin, the night
when my tongue had jostled
and jittered around
one too many
jokes, and
they might have been in poor taste,
I’ll admit, but I swear
they were just jokes,
even after the dull and distant
panic sank in as you said
You were through supplying
me with booze,
and sure,
it’s Your prerogative,
and sure,
i should simply do without,
but where else was i gonna get it?
So i may have been
kidding on the level,
may have been skirting
carelessly around half truths,
sure they’d make You skiddish
if i dropped them out my mouth
hard and heavy, to shatter
on the linoleum floor
like a half-full bottle
falling from my
typically shaky hand,
which never happened.
Maybe i knew,
As i always do,
it was safer to slide them
smooth under the radar,
get them counted as
ian being his silly self,
counted as usual,
which they were,
and ‘cause some things
are funny
‘cause they’re true.
And/or maybe i was taking refuge
in potentially calamitous chemicals,
maybe i was playing a dangerous game,
as i do, but i knew
what i was doing,
as i do, knew as always,
how much and how far and how long
and how to play it safe
and still find
my slow and certain way
to just the right barely-there buzz,
just the right warmth and the warning light
in my head goes out,
knew my limits,
but apparently not Yours.
So You said i’d stop,
and i did, like that,
sitting slumped on the spare mattress,
so still, and that was when
the certainty come over me,
as it will, every now and then,
from then on,
that those things and those ones
i let myself love will
inevitably
leave,
and i know
when i said it
with tears sliding silently
down my face,
pooling beneath my chin,
and i wouldn’t wipe them away,
i know how it sounded
but it was a starkly rational realization,
no meaningless emotional babble
as i hit bottom,
it was true with a capital T,
true of You as much as of me,
and i blamed neither of us for it,
but i still remember,
relive the realization anew,
and each time,
each time,
though i wouldn’t know
how to say it,
i think of You.