honey & lime

CONTENT WARNING: homophobic slurs and rape. Please read at your own risk.

Pietà

Forgive me, Mother, for I’m

not the son you wanted.

​

I’m the child you know the least,

the actor costumed in variations

​

of truth. Counting my deceits

would name every star

 

I am the son who scraped “queer”

from his locker freshman year,

​

whose peers snickered fag every

time he spoke, who, after marching

 

practice, was hugged by Kyle & Travis,

their sweaty clothes discarded,

 

because they knew I liked penises

pressed against me. & forgive

​

me, Mother, for I only

struggled free that first time.

​

I am the son who says he’s “going

for a walk,” but sneaks over to the neighbors’

​

barn to fuck their landscaper;

who was slipped Rohypnol at 15

 

in a red solo Sprite, & spent the morning

after in throbs & aches, whose first

​

time was a blackened blur,

a shadow pressing sweat & cum

 

inside me. You’re marble when I confess

I’m terrified of men despite

 

the burn their bodies bring: that blood-hot

flush, that flash of pain-pulsed pleasure.

 

Mother, I’ve draped myself at your feet,

like a quilt you only half-expect to use

 

during the night, & you haven’t moved,

not even when I whisper I hate myself—

 

You don’t caress my cheek, stroke

my hair, or even embrace me.

 

We are chiseled & hammered

from different stones, sculptures unjoined.