"Being Gay With You Is Like" by AJ Dehany
Being gay with you is like
being tied up
in a sleeping bag
in a bath
of warm to warmish
water and soft
string quintet
ritornelles half-heard
through the half-open
windows of a half-near
music school. And if
I could only half-love you
maybe the sad bath
would stop over-
flowing and flooding
the practice room, ruining
the cream/ochre carpet
we have hated; look how
the skirting board peels
in curls of cracked eggshell.
When we're together I’m
a needle in a compass
spinning and never
ever resting. I loved you like
the North Pole
shifting from one
ice floe to the next
iceberg, the sky
melting and boiling
in warmish acidic
mist and lost
time, whenever
there's a purple hole
in the moment. It's hard
to remember how
we met or when
exactly
or why
we were there
or who
the other guy was
or why he was dead.
Being gay with you is like
I remember being tied
up in a sleeping bag,
warm to warmish water
licking over my face then
you cut the cord,
pushed open the bag—
I stuck my head out
I looked into your bright
bluish green
yellow reddish
ochre and cracked eggshell
eyes and you
you looked into mine.