for all the queers out there still figuring themselves out

 

Priapus

a Greek nude in chiseled marble

standing tall and erect in the sea of museum-goers on their phones

 

I sleep next to him in bed

covers drawn up to my chest

the luxurious white cotton of the duvet soft against my bare flesh

meanwhile I think of my own room

where I sleep on a bare mattress

 

I trace a line with my finger down his neck to his ass

God, he’s got a great ass

feeling every curve and notch

every skin tag

what they don’t tell you in sex ed

or anatomy

is that men can be beautiful too

that they can have curves

that they like to be touched too

that they like to show off and flaunt

sadly, this is a different kind of male gaze we’re talking about

one they didn’t teach you about in school

 

it’s something you had to find out for yourself

through many long, long years

and after so much longing and despair you find yourself thinking:

 

Why did I wait so long?

I think back to all the men in ancient Greece

practicing pederasty

and wonder if they ever thought that thousands of years later

simply holding your partner’s hand as you walk down the street

could be an act of queer resistance

that one day lesbians and gay men could be friends in a movie and it could be normal

that it still is dangerous

            forbidden

to catch a man’s gaze

to look at him with the same desire reserved for our heterosexual counterparts

that boys were never meant to like other boys

            but I guess boys will be boys, huh?

 

There’s a reason queer people feel so safe in alleyways

it’s because for some of us

it’s the only place we can truly be with who we love

 

I want to wake him

to touch him more

my muse says he likes when I scratch his back

fuck yeah, he whispers under his breath

and I believe him

 

it’s hard when you go to a school where most of the queer men love to debase you

it’s hard when you’ve felt like an outcast your whole life

when you’ve thrown your cunt at so many men they’ve asked you to stop

I can hear the rumors

they’ve been following me since high school

I’m sorry I base my self-esteem on whether or not you want to fuck me

but it’s all that I have

 

so I let my Greek nude sleep

I’m awash in the shallow depths of his breathing

and let my hands entangle in the warmth of his armpits

for I know when he wakes,

he’ll shake the world.