Entirely Sure?

He's the loudest in the room and the complete queer edition

of who would inevitably shack up 

inside the rest of my twenties...

and into my thirties. 

His stories of gay romance are sad, 

of course.

Because we're doing great

at mashing church into state like two 

forcibly wide eye'd and smiling 

action figures with no real choice in the matter.

But we haven't sussed out real choice yet, anyway. 

The pleasantry that is internalized, standardized, misogynistic, practice

on both sets of dolls with plastic tits 

without any real areolas of any kind. 

Breastfeeding your child is still something to feel 

objectified and weird about. 

Walking around your small town, shorts from the previous summer 

is somehow the equivalent of walking any industrialized 

strip at night. 

But it sucks his first lover had a strain of HIV. 

He assures us that he was on top. 

So, there's less to worry about in the end. 

I refocus on the fragmented cardboard I ripped out 

without any precision.

Gaze hopelessly at the existing acrylic droolings 

of an attempt at something pretty. 

Something worthy.

I let him lie on top of me in the mornings. 

I let him lie directly at me for always. 

To avoid all the crying, shouting, and foot stamping. 

On the walls farthest in my head, 

I keep scribbling the word rescue over itself. 

It's what I've been bred and buttered for. 

He won't come. 

He says he will. 

Always.

But he won't.