#gay poetry

Queer love is
taking all of
the wishes
that were written
out for you
in baby books,
on birth certificates,
sewn into the
pink and blue
of baby blankets
and pulling the string
to watch them come

a   p   a   r  t,

and trying to catch
whatever threads
fall into your hands
to knit a pocket
to keep your heart
inside.

Queer love is
held in palms,
prayers slipping
between church pews
staring down the eyes
of Jesus on the cross
wishing not to be
the shape that
his father
made you into
that his priests
call damned just so
they can ignore
holiness that he
instilled.

Queer love is
learning how to
keep a secret,
how to be a secret,
how scratches in paint
in bathroom stalls
and confessionals
inside of bedroom walls
are rushed with
fingers pressed to
lips begging to caress,
seething to speak
no longer to the
ear of the night but
fearing the face of
the sun and the way
that its rays
would bleach you
to your bones.

Queer love is
coming out like
a torch to a pyre;
like a Viking funeral
marching precession
to setting yourself
ablaze,
pushing yourself
off a coastline
burning through
the hull of your
heaving chest
waiting to capsize
and be swallowed
and doused
and be whole
in the ocean.

Queer love is
not having to
explain the
overlapping scars
between your lover’s
pressed body,
not needing
drag out history
and trace these
lines like maps
on your skin
to draw the hands
that formed them
because you’re both
covered in the same
fingerprints.

Queer love is
knowing
and having been known,
a truth so indelible
that your mouth
is a permanent marker
and it only redacts
the lies you’ve told
to keep yourself
still written in the
classified pages
of your own
double agent
life.

Queer love is
in how she holds me.
It’s in the gaps
she’s found in
my lines,
in my past,
in the ocean.

Queer love is
the light of day,
it’s a pinkie promise
and an answer to
a prayer.

It’s the pocket
I keep my
heart inside
that makes me born
again.

We had always been hot-blooded, but cool to the touch

protecting each other from the heat that would surely have been us

the sweat, the pulse of our bodies, intertwined and trembling

the vulnerability that comes with knowing each other’s pleasure.

For too long we tried desperately

to mitigate the damage,

you and I (a forest fire) encroaching on a tiny village of restraint.

Slow burning (at first), but burning steadily still,

and moving inward

until we had burned that village down and began dancing

in the flames.

Your body,

no longer cool to the touch, but red hot and wide open.

beside her

As i lay in bed beside my person. my very own soulmate. she sleeps blissfully with a soft and cute snore while i lie awake next to her. she has her hand reached back to touch me while she lays in her comfy position. little bits of contact are always held wether it’s just a hand or our legs touching or full on grasping each other in our arms. simple touches that connect us furthermore in a physical realm. gentle finger tips that caress my soft skin, the same that pull me close in more sensual manners. innocent touches and intimate grasps. i crave her warmth like a moth to a light. she is the soft fire inside a rustic cabin. it feels cozy and safe. the type of place you could enjoy forever. the home i’ve found within a person. my soulmate.

pls someone slap the simp out of me im getting to a critical state at this point im like smiling when i think about him and stuff what the fuck

did i make the same mistake again?

the power that you hold

making me forget my name

for you, your smile, your sapphire eyes

i hope this time we will last longer

i hope this time the feeling in my stomach doesn’t disappear

i’ll try to make you feel alright

as though i didn’t break your heart

i’ll take you as you are this time

i’ll try not to hope for a fantasy

but you know, im a poet

and a dreamer

i’ll set the pace

and hope you’ll follow

i want to be closer to you

you make me feel like no one else has

the power that you hold

you’re magical

You can’t put a time frame on things like these. These intangible things that slip from my grasp and wind up away from me with you, in a place that I can’t reach right now.

I’ll just keep loving you from some unreachable place.

In the meantime darlin I’ll keep on loving and trust that you’ll come back to me when you’re ready.

Everything else is temporary,

But no matter how much time or space falls, silent, between us my love for you will last on through those ages of quiet until I have you in my arms again.

-love, J.

Sometimes I think I’ll float away and just disappear forever one day,

But I’m caught in your orbit, love I’m tied to the sun of your smile.

-all of me is yours to hold.

“And I truly believe that my sexuality is a part of my path. It is not an unfortunate detail to be overlooked, it is not an unhealthy desire or a crude lust to be repressed and reprimanded, it is an expression of love and a simple fact. I am no stranger to the sting of rejection as a result of my queerness, but such pain has given me courage, the bravery to be soft and gentle and loving in a world that wishes to stop my love and to silence my words. This is the beginning of acceptance, this is the start of hope.”

-on internalised homophobia and the reconciling of two different loves.