One day I will lose him.
The fear of loss pricks my skin
Flares my nostrils at its indicative cologne.
This fear tastes like raw desire—
The components of a moan.
It arouses me in that way of funerals—
urging me to feel alive.
When I think of losing him
My body pulls to his—
Claims his space.
I ask—with touch, not tongue—to fill him.
That the space I claim inside him serve as plea
to stay
Until we one day leave this plane together.
If possible, the same hour.
Second.
He surfaces from the wet laundry of my fears
to show me the sky—patched with velvet
& linen
Like some cosmic clothesline of
boundless domesticity.
He is a cloud
Taking on new shapes.
With each shift, I think:
“This is my favorite version of you.”
If he is the sky,
I am the aircraft
Eager to explore.
The sandy smoky citrus
Taste of his allure
Unfurls my tongue
Like a fern at dawn,
Lapping at the morning’s fortifying dew.
His taste intoxicates.
It clings to my mouth, my chin.
I breathe him in for hours after we part.
In the kitchen—
his compact kitchen—
We open jars
Open cans
Dipping into confections we purchased at the store.
We spoon our sweets
with delicate sweeps
Blinking back our pleasure.
I’m more indulgent when I’m with him.
Irrelevant, whether good or bad.
I ask him
in his kitchen,
“When were you last ravenous?”
“This week,” he says. “Right now.”
(He craves an audience for his efforts.)
It makes me hard to hear him stress about attention—
in that way that vulnerability invigorates.
I am ravenous for his shifting moods—
The way he shares his every portion.
(Do I share my whole self with anyone?)
I fill him with my anxiety and lust
And call it love.
Easier to say, “I could fuck you everyday”
Than “I could build a life with you.”
He constructs a drawbridge—
Lowering a rope
When I sink into my moat of insecurities.
Safe is a feeling I’m still afraid of.
Easier to believe you deserve to sink—
To slip through the cracks of self-defeat
Than to grip hold of security.
He is the comfort food of home.
—a wild mushroom in a cave.
The spice of foreign land.
He leaves a lipstick ring I won’t wash off.
(I’d tattoo his every imprint on my skin.)
This romanticism startles me—
it’s too often done me wrong
Leading me to mislead all my lovers
To pull
To push
Of all people, I refuse to mislead
him.
“Oh lover, I’ll cover you”—
he croons as he stirs my emotions over the stove.
Showtunes season all his meals.
A tap of salt.
Kick of thyme.
I’m afraid of turning bitter—
Afraid the next version of him
will lose his taste for me.
I pull away so he won’t leave me first.
Despite that I would taste him for eternity. Still hot and bothered? Read more OFM Lust here.
