CHARLES THEONIA
Lilacs |
Under the damp canopies of Ditmas Park
I turn my head up to the lilacs heavy with rainwater and their delicate smell. I’m carrying rose quartz in my hip pocket so I can feel *embodied*. The last time I saw you it was summer and our clothes stuck to us. Now it’s spring, after the long cold, when the air begins to warm and wetten, and a physical existence begins to feel at least possible again. Lately, all my friends want to talk about masculinity, which is tempting to reject altogether, like, I’m supposed to be it but have no interest in its restriction, its dull refusal of excess. Still I could just be bitter because everyone seems to think I’m some strange, wispy butch who forgot to stop painting her nails. We group-text selfies for affirmation. Kais’ reflection startles after a dramatic haircut and they’re sick of everyone projecting boi-ness onto them, and will this make it worse? |
- o bb
- let’s never care |
I’m here to meet Paco
in the empty apartment we’ll live in together and they say they’re in search of a masculine gentleness. The super guided them here over the phone to a hidden key You will be in a strange hallway you will turn completely past the gilded lobby there will appear before you a door, reach up with your fingers and feel. I decide to allow for complexity. It’s my familiar way: leaving the building and thinking of you in Buenos Aires I realize I don’t want to ask when you’re coming home or where home will be for fear of becoming expectant. The wetness of spring is light and weight at once; the blades of grass are bent by gleaming beads of rain. I walk by a bunch of teenage boys leaving a track meet, loud, sharp and salty and as we pass, one of their hands brushes mine. I am always expectant anyway. |
CHARLES THEONIA was born and remains in Brooklyn, where they are working to externalize their interior femme landscape. They are the author of Which One Is the Bridge, and they keep a poetry blog at qu-arles.tumblr.com
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