Really, it was more like I knew people who knew him; an acquaintance.
I thought him straight but kind, possibly manipulative, but when I saw another turn his head I knew that I had been mistaken.
Perhaps he was confused… Perhaps I was confused…
Even when involved with a man I knew, I didn’t quite believe it.
He was like a vision of youth and culture and ideas relating to things and places I didn’t have access to, beyond his possible longing, his desire for his own gender.
The night that he drunkenly kissed me was flattering and insulting all at once.
I gained no access, you see, and though his lust was honest and the way his eyes met mine left little doubt that I was attractive to him, I’ve never quite convinced myself that he wasn’t seeking to make my friend jealous.
I’m no longer friends with the man who had been his lover; nor have I been such for nearly two decades…
I wonder what ever became of this man who glistened in the background of my life.
His dark hair and the way his smile made his eyes dance…
Gustavo.
I stumble for his name in the car as Aaron and I listen to “Giovanni’s Room”.
I hope he came to a better end; he deserved at least that much…
I thought his name beautiful and a fitting word to match his twilit lambent contradiction of a smile.
If he lives, I doubt he has spared me a second thought.
My eyes have been burning I dream they are bleeding allergic reaction to book I am reading I’ve read it before but it’s still just as haunting: an honest admission of hardship and wanting excerpts of life which echo my own reflected in eyes of men that I’ve known moment and whisper the sound of my breathing the fall of a zipper where wanting is needing the touch of a stranger or the thrill of a glance safety and danger of an old circumstance that creams little death under weight of his stare wet dreams made flesh as our souls are laid bare in each conversation and every discourse each revelation is beyond intercourse as we come together in solace (like marriage) his is a volume I always will cherish.
innocence amorous virtuous sensuous yearn and return repressed stream of consciousness permissible trips stain his kissable lips and he ghosts the tips lest his secret life slips on a dissonant grace obsessed across nations his innocent face is repressed revelation disapproval incurred by his indiscretion a removal of words is that a confession deletion implies there was something to hide you complete the affair when the truth is denied is message deleted admission of guilt this lesson repeated by tears that are spilt
The changes in texture can be delicate or pernicious; at every annual increment there comes a blending, a harmony of vintage soul and cutting edge splendor, shades of winter chills and sprays of summer sunsets.
Some years stay with us longer than others and can be overpowering, melding lilting notes ferocious and graceful, deadly and dominating.
Others are so stealthy and discreet as to seem completely illusory.
I ponder such things as the librarian unbuttons my shirt again.
Clark Kent tells me I’m cute and smart while I blush, imagining the taste of his 31 year old Kryptonian asshole, which will germinate once again one month from yesterday.
Every gesture, hint of desire, every longing whisper is patterned on a needlessly shameful lust, disguising an eroticized guilt that all beasts, alien or otherwise must one day come to endure.
Need as aphrodisiac. Weakness presented as strength.
A world of the senses where nothing makes sense and all answers are contradictory.
The kissing is subtle, blurred water color shimmer of thoughts and sensations.
I suspect I will only ever be his friend, despite our movements to the contrary; I overcomplicate things, you see?
People in relationships are threatened by complexity. Keep things simple. Keep sex simple. Only sex is never simple for me and never has been. I can pretend that it is. I can say that it is. But I must be more than a trick to access such depths.
It has been ages since I even attempted to reach such profundity without conversation, connection, correlation…
Yet even I know this pleasure is simple, while all that writhes beneath and behind is exceedingly complicated.
I’ve just never been good at wearing masks.
Aaron would understand this, I think. He knows me, yes, but he would connect with my questions because he now asks them himself.
Zsolt was anything but simple, and yet he was simple all the same.
A brave, defiant act that I can both admire and detest, encourage and deny; I feel for that man. Under different circumstances, a change of location, I likely wouldn’t have been nearly so troubled.
Animals howling in the night. Lonely, reassuring, reclaiming their places by the fire.
The geography of sex, the distance between two hearts in the aftermath of such a journey, is a mathematical equation revealing how much I will hurt… which is seemingly diametrically opposite of what others seem to achieve or experience.
“Are you okay?” he asks me 12,000 times.
I ask him about Lois Lane and I listen to his smile about Grindr, his love for their home in Boystown, and I know that he loves her.
I let him know I’m not having sex with him tonight.
It’s not because of Lois. Well it is. But’s it’s not. It’s not even because of Aaron, who has said that I’m allowed to sleep with any superhero of my choosing. It’s really just because of my need for, and love of, complication.
I never want to be just a trick.
The librarian with the interestingly spelled middle name who has complimented me on my seemingly youthful features and the size of my photographed cock walks with me to the Metropolis subway, begs me to text him all night, and sings me to slumber beneath poetry scrawls in my stoned drunken handwriting.
