As you read this, imagine you are a nineteen year old boy that has unwittingly fallen in love with another boy that you know isn’t gay, and that you have chosen to keep this love secret to avoid coming out of the closet.
1 . The Drug
The sun feels like warm aluminum
pressing against my skin, as I inhale
the glare off his sunglasses, and the *tsk
as he smirks. My heart
beating timidly in my throat,
I drink indifference, my
very own concoction for just
such a moment.
I drink the potion
and, as I take that overly
metaphorical ride home, I feel
the crunch under foot as I
step into a navy-blue forest,
where the birds sing as often as the sun shines
and I realize that I never really left this place
because even when I return I am
still trying to find a way out.
And I am
tired of being lost, even if I’m not going
in circles. Tired of reflecting on the nature
of reality, when I can’t even see the sky.
Tired, but not tired enough
to quit moving;
not tired enough
to give up the feeling of sap on
my fingers, and dew drops on my legs.
Not tired enough,
to stop asking questions I
already know the answers to.
Tipsy on this potion now. It
doesn’t really do anything, there
aren’t any warning labels on the bottle, it
just gives me the strength to
wander just a little bit further now, to
feign dispassion just a little bit longer now, to
wonder aloud to myself just who it was that
planted all these seeds that
gave birth to
all these trees
and if they will fall
before I find my way out.
2 . The Concussion
I hear the shuffle and scurry of mice as
I walk through the forest, unaware
that I’m not breathing right. I stop.
I stand before a large, thick tree, its bark
is black without the moon. I press my hand
into the damp, rugged trunk
thirsty for a glass of
awareness. I kneel before the tree and
press my face into the mulch and dirt,
but all I smell is dust.
Dawn arrives peacefully, like a nurse to a patient.
The forest is colder
but I feel warmer, as my neck
rolls under me until I am staring up
at the void. I see a crow, perched high
up on a branch. I call out to him;
and as he flies
down to meet me, I open my eyes.
I had tripped
on a wire made of
disturbing,
disheartening,
dismaying feelings.
I lift my head, I feel as though everything
under the canopy is avoiding me, but
I am too tired, too vacant, too sad
to cry.
I stand up, brush off my jeans,
and continue onward.
3 . The Oasis
Moss feels like felt on my fingers
as I stretch my hands on the nearest tree
and watch as clouds form and vanish
over a small, swampy lake. I sit
just beyond the water’s edge, and stare
without focus. The crow has landed on the
branch above me and caws deliberately.
I silently wish I could
echo his sentiment.
I have traveled needlessly into
this forest of my own creation, but here by the water,
a respite from the forest,
I have come to rest;
an escape from an escape.
As I smell the breeze, I
hide my recognition of the anesthesia in the air
because I like the sun on my face,
the wood-chips pressing into my palms, the
dirt under my finger nails.
And as my head drifts back to the ground,
my eyes rolling back,
I smile momentarily, wondering
but not bothering to care, because
I can’t.
4 . The Vision
I find myself continually
continuing on an unmarked road.
The world spinning around me, replacing that
familiar light blue above; a panorama of all
that I won’t, don’t, reach out for,
that I tell myself has
been stripped out of arm’s reach.
The roots of the tree wrap around my legs as
I sit and mope again,
hoping someone will pass by, here
in this universe entirely my own.
Somehow I’ve begun to wish for
someone to join me,
more than I wish
to leave.
I lean into the tree and close my eyes
with forceful and unconditional determination,
and I wonder how heavy my eyelids will be
when I rise
the next morning.
Here, in the navy blue forest, the
city bus, my bicycle seat, the desk-chair,
everything is drowsy with apathy,
as if weighed down by some force that
floats in the air like pollen. It
is a pain that has emerged, anthropomorphized,
from the depths of my body, my
mind,
my soul.
5 . The Relapse
A flicker in my vision and I see his eyes, his smile.
Weakness scares me more than death, what if
I just told him the truth.
The thought consumes me like a chill
running through my bones
I drink a sip more and the trees come
back into focus.
It is like an analgesic.
it doesn’t diminish the pain, it just
makes the pain a little easier
to tolerate. That pain,
that separation, that
deception, that
illusion sits
as a knife in my chest
as I stumble, rocks and twigs
poking my heels and
worms crawling between my toes,
the navy blue forest
expanding around me
without cease.
The first in a series of poems during what I call my “fatuous period.”
