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AI-generated graphic by NightCafe for The New Verse News. |
My little boy blue,
as a child you wore
girl-pink, not the browns
of circus bears and puppies.
Not the beiges of office walls.
Who cares about colors now?
Wear what you like.
As a girl child, my boy snakes hung
down in braids past my fingertips.
They had a sweaty life all their own.
They flicked ribbon tongues at me,
struck me on the back when I ran
away, so I cut them off one day.
I stored them in a box of magic tricks,
decorated the lid with sequins,
like moon disks sparkling in the light.
Who would see them in a dark closet?
I eventually got my girl groove back.
I liked the boys, their hawk heads,
hooded. They blinked in astonishment
that I had actually caught up to them.
Eventually, I grew my braids back,
gave up the girl I used to love.
I opened my legs to the bedposts.
I had you on my favorite night of all.
You were born blue and little.
I think of you now as a girly boy.
A ghost of a boy-girl in a mirror.
Don’t rub off your eyeshadows
with the back of your hand,
with your desert skin, so dry and soft.
Your eyes are the valleys you’ve left
behind in the rearview mirror,
where the hills float away.
The morning moves you,
slides a mountain aside, as you
drive through, around the twists
and turns of your desires.
The mountains widen, deepen
their despair then disappear,
the further into this self-love thing you go.
