hurtle the cake.

              hurdle the grave.

tell the smallest dog

              your smelliest you.

erase the hand erasing

              the mouth. move to a distant

memory with your worst

              marginalia. or favorite

cousin. journal about it.

              type up

your review of the year’s

              first snow: a predictably

thrilling sequel

              to what the leaves,

not too long ago, said.

then, kiss the snow.

pick up a heaping

              handful & smooch it.

feel the snow

              give you smoochies back.

listen to it. listen

              close. the snow.

each fluttering little note of it

              saying, kiss me

& kiss me

              here & here.

tonight, i am the worst queer—i hate longing, detest

                                                                 yearning. right now, i am the worst queer

              poet—i don’t want

                      any synonym for want, any

                      sinfully great lyric ache. i don’t want to read or write a single

                                   beautiful description

       of distance. no.

i will have sex. i will have

                         close, verbal,

    smelly, emotional sex. i will have hotter than a faggy volcano’s

                smutty novel sex. & fuck,

                                 if i can’t have it with someone, i’ll have my way

with me. in fact, i’m already

                                  precumming. i’m leaking right into my left hand—

                                                                                              my nondominant hand’s

                                  powered up, & i’m going. i’m upping the speed,  

               frothing myself forth. i’m getting real friendly

     with my foreskin, leaving every lack

        behind. i’m loving on

                                    & in my behind. my right pointer’s voyaged

                                  far up my twitchy hole, my hairy legs are raised in the me-scented

air, the whole room’s fragranced by butt

                                                       & balls, & i’m watching it all in the full-length mirror.

                                               this creature

     so interested in his own nature. this researcher, studying

          & collecting data on his pleasure.

     i’m at play, i’m the project, i’m both animals

                                       breathing hard.  

i’m breath & both hands working hard. i’m hard, i’m hard, i’m my pleasure
                                          pleasing me. i’m my hole, my cock, i’m my cock, my cock,

           i’m cock & hole, i’m hole & hole, my cock i’m fuck i’m going to

take a break. let my body say, what. god. agh.

                            & squirm a bit

                            while i take some giggly sips from my nightstand water.

                                                                                               while i sigh, delighted.

                      let my body, impatient, exhale into a fuller  

abundance. this moment

                                   not about vexed want, knotted

                                                                 waiting but a true, green

                    resting. & just a different breath.

& then i’m set. ready & well-hydrated. one drooly

               hand twisting a nipple, the other

 droolier hand on my cock. a simpler arrangement

                                                  than earlier, but no less kinetic a combo for this

         late-night, night-long show.

                                sweaty & slow, slow & silly, i’m building

                                                                up to it seriously slow.

                            until i can’t. i catch my face in the mirror,

                                                                                       my unpretty grin, the honestly ugly

fun i’m having. look, i don’t need to be stunning,

                                                                 don’t need a thing, not a fuck fuck i’m

                                                       cumming, it’s hitting my neck,

                                                                                            my face, it’s in my mouth, i’m

                                                                               dripping from my lips,

                                                       i’ve got cum-breath, a cum-stache, & i’m grabbing

     pics. sending them from my phone

                                     to my soul.

                                          & sometime later,

     my soul is cuddling my finally

                                             soft cock. they’re glowing, still, in the stinky bask

                   of each other. & my soul’s nuzzling close, closer than ever to my cock,

                       while my cock, already a touch

                                 recharged, says, hey,

           do you know the term “philatelist”? i just learned this.

                                                a philatelist is one who collects &/or studies

                                                   postal stamps. philatelist, one who practices

philately—doesn’t that sound

                                        kind of like flatulence,

                                            a bit like fellatio? oh,

                                                                                i bet it comes from french—

                                                            why don’t we look it up?

& my soul is nodding

off, he’s starting to make a sound not

                                                        unlike flatulence—& loud. but sort of sweet

             to those who like him.

                                                              mm, says my cock, you’re singing

                                                              your songs again.

When did they show up, the not so little
hairs on my knee?

Do you, too, have a news anchor
voice going going in your head
whenever you read the back of the cereal box?

Isn’t it literature, the gatorade she left in the other room
the other day?

Hasn’t he sensed the needs of a tree, his favorite oak, at least?

Aren’t we in the traveling part of summer?

How did I stop listening to my need to be high up in a tree,
in any
height of tree, in it, at least?

How are you?

(Staying out of trouble?)
(Keeping a bee?)

Don’t you tell me a claw sandwich
doesn’t sound better
than a finger sandwich, you wouldn’t dare, would you?

If we were to slither now, hither would we go?

Hi, enthused teacher or bewildered student
or concerned parent!
Thank you for emailing out of the blue or
as the French say, out of the bleu.
To answer your urgent & original question,
I am not inspired, ever.
I write just so you will assign/do/
help with—while disapproving of—
all this homework
about me
& grow up
or finally be well-adjusted, capable
of taking out the recycling
on a semi-regular basis while talking to your
semi-handsome neighbor
who’s sitting outside. Ah, the fresh air
becoming hotter & oranger by the minute.
Oh, that’s not a gay thing,
sorry, that’s a planet in deep
doo-doo thing.
To answer your less urgent & unoriginal question, yes.
Your dreams will die & so
will you. But if you’re lucky, you’ll go first.
Meanwhile, someone in Switzerland
is sending their very first email,
now isn’t that a sight for sore eyes. Oh,
a cliché! Quick, let’s revise. Now isn’t that
a kite for sore lives. Much better, n’est-ce pas? Sorry,
I know French
is filth & the gayest of langues. & now
I must go feed my second pug, Symposium.
Yup, that’s a Plato thing.
Oui, that’s a gay thing,
so sorry. Désolé. Je suis vraiment,
vachement désolé.

Ajar.

Aloft. Afar, afoot. Ashore,

    atop. Aflutter,

ajar, sometimes a lot.

    Then amuck,

    adrift. Afire.

Awryly aflame. Asunder,

    afucked. & closed

up, or is it down. Sometimes

    for a year,

    years. Then

afloat, aloft, ajarred afresh.

    Anewer aglow.

Astride atrue, across aflew,

    awhoevenknew:

    something in you

so never closed, forever fucking  

    abloom, in fact,

even while amiss, adoom.

    Unasleep, even

    amidst the dullest

miseries. Who knew—this life,

    this alive. Agog,

agod. Awash with vowel & you,

    committed to

    comma &

not yet, or sure, period, but then

    right away up

to go alltheway down. To stumble

    allaround for a

    letter, another.

increase your daily chapstick application by fifteen

hundred percent.

                            practice your kinkiest sex

on your frown-frumpiest days.

retreat for at least an hour every night  

to be with your butt-soft, ass-tough poems.

apply ever more of your heart

to your mouth—

                                 but don’t forget speaking

is only one form of loving.

if one cat sweater doesn’t suffice, don

on top of it another, larger,

sweaterier cat sweater.

remember that a synonym for your heart

is total babe.

remember that the moon shares

             that synonym.

wonder aloud on a park bench in a busy park,

is this poem too moony,

too self-helpy?

                                      accept help

beyond yourself. admit you were wrong

about how good the burgers were at that one place,

they only tasted that good to you

because you were utterly

                                         magnificently stoned.

say the word “vestibule”

five times fast.  

for a week, say to everyone you meet, yes i now

             spell my name “chanel,”

             no it’s still pronounced “chen,”

                        yeah if you don’t get that, i hate you.

listen to the pomegranate

on the kitchen counter say, you think you know

             what a fruit is. you haven’t the foggiest!

become alive

enough to live

your pomegranate faggotries.

             understand that your slutty love for words

isn’t always a lovely sluttiness

for truth. recognize that sometimes

                                         & sometimes often

another synonym for your heart

is undeniable asshole

              —though undenying this is only the first step.

store your chapsticks well.

say lolz

ever so slowly. be not

only a generous lover

             but also a generous love.

                                       know

but don’t dwell on the mountainous

fact that there are just slightly

over four hundred

                                  thousand steps.

know, in the depths

of total babe, that you will, some

                            very december days, be poemless

                            & even sweaterless,

but never will you be kinkless.

froth would be a great name for a band

& probably is. during the week of scheduled merry, mass mirth,

i learned about a band people younger than myself enjoy

                               & the mirth did burst,

                                                       the merry positively frothed

   when i watched their latest music video.

        how much they danced

        just with their hands! the music video

                                                     as an art form—revived!

during the supposedly mirth-merriest

time of year, i was not ready to shed my supposings, my position of not

        humbug exactly,

          but kinda bah, yes.

                                           then, this most kissable song

                  about outer space (they danced

                  in their spacesuits!). then, i looked up

                                 the definition of “froth”: a mass of small

                                        bubbles caused by agitation, fermentation, or

                                        some other thing, & otherwise

                                                             known as foam. to froth

                                        is to cause or contain this mass of small

                             bubbles otherwise known as foam & usually overflowing

                                                                  from a can of soda, beer, or

                                                                  soul. to foam is to be overly effusive

about a band people younger than yourself enjoy.

                                                                          i love definitions.

             they don’t box me in

                      except for all the time i’ve lived

                      in the united states of america since the age of 4.

                      (since i was 4, not since the united states of america was 4.)

one of my brothers is turning 28 next month

           & on the xmas family video call i said, wow.

                                                                             wow

               are we all getting old. & he said, yeah, that’s how time works.

& i was both chapfallen & crestfallen, the definition for both

      being the other. i couldn’t understand why

      he had to be so factual. i love definitions

but hate facts.

               i love definitions that are forever questions

                         due to my never remembering them,

                                     my always looking them up

                                or in the middle of wondering about.

               this would also describe

               my relationship with the spelling of “entrepreneurial.”

   entrepreneurially speaking, holidays &

                      most days, i am irritated.

     my other brother turns 27 in the spring. he would be great

     in a band, but would never

     do that, he’s far too busy pursuing his other creative talents

          to financial success & deep fulfillment.

i’m proud of him, though also

                        irritated, now that he has

                barely a thing to justify to our parents,

                maybe just his haircut.

                                                              i’m proud of the life i’ve made

out of words & fairly adventurous haircuts,

           yet i’m irritated with myself

                                               every day. i’m

           an artist, meaning a massively small self-esteem & a love for

                everything minutely vast. froth, the artist formerly known

                as foam!—i love stuff like that. i cherish

                                  how my boyfriend,

       a bit older than me, said he’s closest to the tall & quiet

                                                         one in the band, though

                                                         even taller & quieter,

              & i said, definitely

              taller, but quieter (??), you’re never quiet,

              & he said,

                                  fuck you, i am 8 foot 4 & have never spoken a word.

my favorite definition of mirth,

     which happens to be the main one, is gladness or gaiety

     as shown by or accompanied with laughter.

                                                                                           gaiety!

                 can you guess why i love that definition? yes, i am

                                queer as in fuck you, but i am also gay

                                as in i don’t know

                 how to live in this world or why i should

& isn’t that fun.

little bubbles full of feeling.

                       the holidays—do you ever wish there were more & better

                       gay holiday movies? do you ever watch a gay movie

                                                                 because you are gay

                & looking for yourself, then looking for other gays,

then looking for yourself, again?

        do you ever watch a gay movie & find yourself

             happy, even

             mirthful, frothing with

        yay, gaiety? only for the ending

                             to be um, utterly ruinous?

         do you ever watch yourself

              being gay as in person turning

35 & the guinness world record holder

               for most consecutive nights spent tearful by a scented candle?

               i’m not answering that, but thank you for asking.