The Truth That We Craved

The boy across the field behind my house
had more in common with me than
ancestors;
most other kids I played with
were related to me
but he was always my favorite

because of the way he looked at me…
Later in life he was damaged in a tragic accident
and our future conversations ceased to be.

In an unseen instant he was ripped away
although he was still alive,
and that’s more than can be said for others
lost in that era of AIDS and ignorance.

I shake the love letter postcards out of my skull
and pick one at random:

I remember his breath on my neck;
the feel of our young bodies pressed together
like the pages of a trashy tattered copy
of a seldom read incest fantasy,
which I will forever remember as the first time that I made love;
the first time that someone I loved made love to me.

His reaching, reciprocated touch was tender,
terrified and then joyous.

His movement: considerate, then brutal within the landscape
of a language that we both finally understood.

In our joining, our words from a hundred lying conversations
gained new meaning and were finally made honest.

His kiss informed me that I was never truly alone.

His cock translated every secret code
I had ever witnessed
in the eyes of countless lonely strangers.

His thrusting within me
within the home of his grandparents…
that place between sheets
and layers of blood magic was always
and will forever be sacred.

My love letter postcard memories
are holy relics
now tumbling out of my decades old skull.

Rectangular snapshots of a time before
we were allowed to be who we truly were…

In a time before he lost who he truly,
secretly had been…

A time when we had dreamed
of a very different future
that had been reflected in
our tangle of shared flesh and blood.

Written by Jason Wright
April 5, 2018

Ad Hoc

everyone looks like everyone else,
or at least
everyone I meet of late
reminds me of others I’ve known

like my life is a friendly little shop
filled to the brim with charming knick-knacks,
inspirational quotations and echos
of a hundred baristas
filling thousands of coffee cups…
where lilting Donnie Darko music plays
as Mobley Mouse’s older younger brother
sits like a ghost in the corner
of my clearly obsessed brain.

FireLion smiles as my other sibling selves
recite poetry with all the power
that we can muster.

Written by Jason Wright
March 22, 2018

Drugs Are Quick

In snowcapped Vermont
artists interpret MADNESS
in nine songs that jangle
pleasantly through
my short term memory,
where they fade away to nothing,
save vaguely happy impressions
of experiences I wish I could hang on to
for longer than Ambien will allow.

Xanax RATTLES in my pocket
as seemingly female
child rearing occupant
makes other passengers
noticeably uncomfortable…
the smell of talcum powder
makes me think of boyhood erections
and vaginal cancer.

The sound of “Kryptonite” comes from
3 Doors Down
and I’m dragged back to San Francisco
drunken backseat passenger ride
from one unknown location to another.
THE MAN beside me is wearing my black clothing,
my leather collar,
while I am wearing someone else’s dress…

What ever happened to that Dorothy looking shit?

So intimate to see him wearing my goth rocker drag
while I feel the cool autumnal chill
on unwieldy knees which have never felt more naked.

…My Head Is Spinning…

Gay gangster rap pours into my brain
as latex allergy flashback rips me in half
on preacher boy’s beautiful blonde cock….
and that last time was totally worth it.

The Midrin has thankfully done it’s ruby stained work;
Thank you Peter Murphy (The Scarlet Thing is actually in me)
and I’m dancing at the Kit Kat Klub
where all orientations
are surprisingly segregated
when angry heterosexual cis-woman
calls me a faggot
before I turn to make out
with her stupidly aroused boyfriend
just to spite her.

Off the train and I stop at random village pharmacy
for cough drops
before Jumpin’ Jack Frost
tells me we’re done:
just 2 more meetings and out…
I’m lucky it’s still Tuesday
because I’m gonna need a drink.

“Do you want to begin?”

Back in the dress I wore
so preacher boy could see me naked,
and I have no idea that 18 years later,
on the opposite side of the country,
I’ll still be scrawling about him singing
“Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered”,
“When You Wish Upon a Star”
and assorted unspeakable lyrics
that he traced across
my unguarded vulnerable ambition.

This part sucks
but it’s just a draft
and doesn’t need to be as perfect
as Cocaine Sex in
countless naked backroom dance parties…
bodies writhing in dark congress,
riding waves in darkened corners –
pain, disappointment, lust & loneliness
expressed in acid light,
opium torture and heroin bliss.

Feed me water.
Slake my thirst.
Let them drink wine!

Just give me cum, prayer, piss and whiskey.

Written by Jason Wright
March 6, 2018

Queer Street

This night is as queer as
the gay mohawked punk
who complimented my jacket
on my way to the A train
in the village,
only the night isn’t actually half as interesting.

The asshole sitting next to me
has boundary issues
and a fur lined hat
that only Putin could love –
he also talks loudly in Russian
to his imaginary friends.

How have I lived this long without JeffisHe?

This express train
is running far too locally.

Russian weirdo rips his top
and snaps his fingers on nipples
as orange as Trump’s face.

“Smile Bitch”

His sick room gas mask
is the perfect touch
and brings everything together
in apocalyptic chic.

“Now runaway.”

His stripey pants replacement
smells better but transmits plague
as if it’s a rebel yell
reaching across the air waves
to stifle, strangle, promise and repeat.

My reviews are honest but petty…
street queer deserved better.

Written by Jason Wright
March 6, 2018

The Same Deep Water

The beautiful savage
drifting in the back of my mind
is nearly forgotten
beneath ginger dreams
and transgender crushes.

“Everybody knows the boat is sinking”
but if I’m not there to witness it…
does it capsize and submerge
or does it merely fade away?

Kate Bush struggles to reel me back in,
but seductive as she is
I have far too much to do and explore
to immediately surrender to her siren sway.

And yet I want to return
and travel through those fictional waters,
which slowly swallowed me whole
a mere decade before.

Ten years ago and so much has happened
but an unexpected blessing of chance has allowed my survival
that I may reencounter that phantom vessel;
to finish the cycle which began before my awareness &
to finally bring my drowning to completion.

Written by Jason Wright
February 27, 2018

His Monsters

Patrick shakes his head;
dancing in place
as they come for him once again
in figment and thought,
in memory & dream.

He clacks away at obsidian keys
as he struggles
to spin pain into art,
flesh into word,
bravery into poems pressed together
in collective battle scars;
assorted victories and losses
on his way to documented catharsis.

Written by Jason Wright
February 13, 2018

For Patrick Johnson

Angels

A cascade failure of memories
wiped away by drugs
struggles toward a surface stain
of calculated depth.

Flickering images
like tongues of flame
shimmer through a train car of strangers…
ignited and extinguished
in the same breath…
I feel their warm glow
long after they are nothing
but smoke and ash.

Cold rain sparkle
pricks me awake
as I stumble through the mist
into another dreaming space
of bright chill and a remembering of self.

Memories are dreams
of a time that no longer exists.

We were all dead years ago
and my struggling ghost
is nothing so rare or sacred
as that fumbling child faggot
who plateaued
in the momentary recognition
of shared desire.

Written by Jason Wright
February 13, 2018

unPrEPared

In July he’s beautiful…
beyond what I’d known,
beckoning behind me,
breathlessly below me,
and he’s blatantly blessed my insides;
benevolently and becomingly.

Less than 2 weeks ago and he was harrowing…
having hazed our harmonation
when he hollered he’d rather have
HIV than herpes simplex.

The lilting listing of letters STOPS
as I’m overwhelmed to trembling
at hearing the sentence uttered within my lifetime,
let alone with such a haunting sense of longing.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

I want to scream. Want to shake him.
Want to slap him for such a blasphemous confession.

But I hold him close as I shiver
and he whispers about pills and stigma,
outbreaks and misconceptions,
the men (plural) who’ve rejected him,
and the men (plural) who’ve accepted him
since his November 2017 infection.

His illness merely scares me but
his promiscuity terrifies me;
I am nothing if not a child of the AIDS pandemic.

He was amazing when he was inside of me back in July.
I even dreamed of a life spent together. The three of us, I mean.

But he wanted someone all his own
and so he never stopped looking:
in Seattle, Canada, Hawaii or New York City.

He tells me that he was in my place years before
and our symmetry stuns me all the more.

I pull him on top of me,
my legs wrapped around him,
as I whisper in his ear about our blissful summer night
and how I thought I’d scared him away
with my longing for a life together.

He silences my tears with his own silent weeping;
his voice shattering into a broken child’s quivering
as he tells me that I’m not to blame;
that it was he who frightened himself away.

Fear defines his every action;
tinges the edges of every decision…
I hear it in his voice and I know that he speaks the truth.

There is no pre-exposure prophylaxis to be taken for this unease.

He leaves us,
naming us blameless
and yet there is blood on my hands…

For although we remain in the land of the uninfected,
none of us could ever be classified as clean.

Written by Jason Wright
February 13, 2018

OKIE

Photograph style
is nearly eclipsed

Epitaph smile:
the curve of his lips…

Warpaint & love:
perfection misshapen.

The feint hint of blood
or am I mistaken?

The light in his eyes:
are they tears or illusion?

Can’t quite surmise
yet I’m steered by confusion…

It’s clear that his visage
is something inspired…

It’s clear that this image
is someone desired…

The paradox here
is not worth denying…

Men can be beautiful
while they are crying.

Written by Jason Wright
January 31, 2018

Multifaceted

We fought kamikaze
yet thoughts were systemic.

You joined us for coffee
and brought a pandemic.

We strayed and collapsed
as we choked about freedom.

We played and we laughed
and we spoke about geekdom.

You talked very quickly
as if we were racing.

Half-cocked and pretty;
massive and bracing.

You stood there indifferent
as your past untangled

and looked very different
whatever the angle.

A hundred perversions
as opening move.

I wondered which version
would prove to be true?

Peculiar blue collar
on rough side of mirth?

A junior to Potter
on scruff of the Earth?

Your favorite Doctor?

That doesn’t seem odd.

But were you a monster
or were you a god?

Were you a waiter
with musical talk?

A sly masturbator
with beautiful cock?

Pardon, the writer
is famously slow.

Hard to decipher
the faces of Joe.

Written by Jason Wright
January 30, 2018

For Joe

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