How young we were and how young we became with one another as the bickering of our breaths and the melding of our minds and the entanglement of what else was left until we couldn’t control that which awoke new and strange- blossomed- foreigners forged into one another instead of against and now-
now that’s all done.
Now the clocks are restarting again. Now the world is set on course. Now you are far and frightful and frigid. Now our cornerstone becomes rigid cracking the spine of the boy I loved as he lies wrapped in a
Living Nightmare.
II.
How quietly I watched you break yourself down like an equation. How I whispered into the softness of your hair. How I wanted and wanted and wanted even after you weren’t there.
How I observed the crime scene of our desires unfold:
Here is the chalk outline of my palms on your face. Here is the chalk outline of your nails dug into my waist. Here is the chalk outline of the race we thought we won so unaware the gyre of our dreams had snapped with fanged teeth already catching up on us
(and I listen for the sound of your footsteps fading in the talc-white
Dust, dust, dust…)
III.
Look at me once and you’d see a grimace. Look at me twice, mein schatz, and you’d see the worry behind my eyes but I’m not the kind of thing someone looks at twice, am I?
(especially with the world ending)
It’s almost a miracle you even noticed me at all and it’s such a terrible irony to befall because
you were so loud I had forgotten what I enjoyed about my silence, you were so loud I had forgotten clashing symbols set my teeth on edge, you were so loud I had forgotten sound wasn’t supposed to be a thing set on fire and doused in technicolor until your voice only rang out in the hollow exitlude of passing thoughts.
IV.
Do you hear me in the slivers of your solitude?
(Because I have cenotes within me-)
Do you pick me up with your shattered coffee mug?
(-in which whatever dives down to replace who was once there-)
Do you pull me close in a different bedroom’s dark husk?
(-might only ever skim the surface as seafoam-)
Do you taste the remnants of light on your tongue, a remainder of carried numbers and torches and the brusque natures of kisses bruised as fallen stardust?
(-but can never fill in the depths of what ‘was-is-will be.’)
Do you know you really are my sweetest blunderbuss?
V.
I want the world to end again.
I miss my best friend.
I divide to zero and back down when-
The axel of bedlam turned under your hand and
(darling, you must forgive me-)
for a moment, I forgot I was anything but your truest heart.
-Poems Hermann Gottlieb wrote after the war ended (to a man who was no longer there.)
“C’mon, Herm! I’ve almost got a fire ready. Get out the
marshmallows,” Newton called from further up the beach where he was gathering
driftwood.
It was January, 2026, exactly one year after the end of the
war. Newton had been adamant about commemorating the occasion somewhere warm and
remote, so the two found themselves on an isolated island in the Maldives, sunset
turning the receding tide into alternating splashes of turquoise, violet and orange.
“I want you back, baby,” Newt says softly. “Do you think I would buy expensive champagne for just anyone?”
“Do you think,” Hermann pauses, setting his jaw with determination, “that calling me a pet name I despise and ordering me expensive food will win me back after the callousness with which you broke up with me?”
in which Hermann realizes something’s wrong with Newt and decides the only way to save him is to date him
So I just went with my buddy while he got a rib tattoo, and they hurt like a lot, so he’s over there grimacing and being a huge manbaby so I just reach over and grab his hand so he can squeeze it because I’m a good person who helps others
And he’s clinging to my hand like it’s a life preserver and I’m being me and talking about nonsense like Grimace from the McDonalds commercials and how R2D2 is always ready to throw hands, and whatever, and the artist keeps glancing over at me and I’m like do your tattoo bro I’ve got my buddy handled
But then I realize he’s like, looking over because he can’t tell if he’s seeing something or not, and I glance down and I see my rainbow scalemail bracelet, and how I’m talking to my buddy all fondly and I’m like stroking his arm like he’s a wounded animal, and right as it clicks in my head the tattoo artist asks in his most nonchalant voice possible, like intentionally bland, I’m just talking about the weather haha what do you mean voice:
“So, are you guys close?”
And my gay ass is over to the side internally screaming because yeah, I am gay, but like this is just me being a good bro and my buddy is COMPLETELY OBLVIOUS TO WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE HE’S A GARBAGE STRAIGHT PERSON AND HE SAYS
“Yeah of course, that’s why I asked him to come”
SO NOW THE TATTOO ARTIST THINKS HE’S RIGHT AND HE HAS A GAY COUPLE GETTING A TATTOO AND MY BUDDY HAS NO IDEA AND I’M AWKWARDLY SITTING HERE LIKE SHOULD I STOP HOLDING HIS HAND??? SHOULD I CORRECT THIS TATTOO ARTIST??? SHOULD I LET MY BUDDY KNOW??? MY GAY ASS DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE BEING INCORRECTLY ACCUSED OF BEING GAY, WHAT DO YOU DO
So that tattoo artist is like “Cool man, that’s great. Good for you.”
So then my buddy is like can I get some water, and the guy comes back with one bottle of water and my buddy takes a drink and then hands it to me, and I’m like obviously he has to lay down and needs me to hold his water so I just hold it in my hand, but turns out he was offering me water, so he turns to me and is like Colton, drink some water, and I take a drink and my garbage lizard brain is like “You’re drink sharing in front of the tattoo artist, now he KNOWS he’s right”
So we’re talking about tattoos with the artist and I mention that I’m getting a tattoo in September and my buddy is like “Yeah I’m gonna go and hold HIS hand for that one haha” and the tattoo artist FUCKING SAYS “I mean, I should hope so”
I MEAN, I SHOULD HOPE SO
I MEAN, I SHOULD HOPE SO
AND NO ONE ACTUALLY BROUGHT IT UP. I KNEW WHAT THE TATTOO ARTIST WAS THINKING BUT DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING TO CORRECT HIM. NOW WHEN MY BUDDY GOES BACK AND GETS HIS NEXT TATTOO IN THE FUTURE AND I’M NOT THERE HE’S GOING TO GO “OH WHERE’S YOUR BOYFRIEND”
Avelera 