# #sex 10 poems ## [hinge](https://chromato.graphics/hinge) door in our place i never open out of fear and too much want touch the knob — i am shocked sounds like a party in there but where is my invitation? missing out doesn’t scare me sometimes, it’s open a crack scents from the kitchen waft my favorite dish on the menu i give up. nothing better to do splayed on gray wool, rubbing nothing matches their rhythm the guests tire, it swings open streamers and confetti spilling must be my job to clean ’em up ## [no](https://chromato.graphics/no) do i have to belt you? to overcome a bubbling or are my words enough to staunch the flowing from leaking fountains pleasure is never free, even when it is a gift. beg me with honeysuckle pollination. allergies. only believe in denial. muscle tension, hunger. dew’s wetter than rain. desperate questions tie barricade tape tighter. no. a complete sentence the longer we wait here clock hands move slowly waiting, praying on the dripping limestone tile a sacrifice in purpose. release is for the weak but you are strong, no? every drop metered out. are you grasping at it? there isn’t a shortage. don’t ask me again, now you know my answer love age years in the bottle our flavor concentrates only believe in denial. ## [use](https://chromato.graphics/use) craving total transformation, identity a disposed wrapper. becoming a vessel for want, glass poured into, overfilled. you haven’t been here lately. something in our combining always begins this reaction: photochemical excited state learning how to spark again — days ago: gel, pumps, bulbs, rattling pill bottles and nerves, black gloves, gold foil, silicone. it’s warmed up enough already. don’t ask or guess — just _know_. take a part you claim as yours, shape it to your pleasure. use. time stutters; the gears grind forward under prying pressure. repairing hidden mechanisms, counting every beat yourself. disappearing deconstruction: ripped apart by heat and light, shredded into a thousand tiny pieces of steel. shrapnel blast. there is stillness in oblivion, peace made in the darkness. clenched fists, soaked linen. i swear. i won’t move. i can’t. ## [steps](https://chromato.graphics/steps) now please, sit back stretch out your legs relax awhile — furniture begs pull off your boots i’ll kneel below slip off your socks and take it slow bare both your soles flex all ten toes your footstool’s goal: to be repose our arches meet — my back, your curve almost so much i don’t deserve a faint perfume teases my nose the smoothest skin so rarely shows i’ll work them deep with oiled hands their perfect forms each digit fanned red lacquered nails command my eyes and higher heels you’ve made me buy bare, they stay — no decoration focus trained on adoration pressed on my face i’ll kiss you there and lick the base become ensnared kick or trample i’ll take the pain with shoes sampled my body strains pleads for pressure that space between — the greatest pleasure: touch from the queen release the jewels that flood within wetness pools on shining skin ## [nude](https://chromato.graphics/nude) back then, i saw your body just on screens — pinpricks of light transferred across the line. soft curves and folds, i felt you in my dreams; those pictures, now, are burned into my mind. and then i touched your silken skin at last, traced these lines with red ink until they dripped, gripped thighs while kissing slow, then hard & fast, embraced to warm the places we had stripped. but now i’m separated from your touch, yearning for the ways we fit, like jigsaw pieces you never need to force too much. despite it all : _i’m here. i won’t withdraw._ you’re nude before my eyes, no matter where. i’ll drink you up and leave them none to spare. ## [a⸺part](https://chromato.graphics/apart) thin string between us stretching miles connecting our chests tension we can sense tugging twine winding over land we set it aside knotted tight when we’re together the rope uniting us untying now because we’re home we don’t need help to touch when we’re here ## [t4t](https://chromato.graphics/t4t) i read that things used to be different for us. that we used to hide behind heavy coats, from ourselves. i read that we’d get compared to cigarettes on the street in broad daylight just for walking the wrong way. things are different for us now. not because we are the majority, but because we are not, and we know that. our difference is our value. things changed because seasons did. the old trees that once ruled the forest have fallen, been subsumed into the soil. things changed because our elders fought for us and their enemies dwindled. life is no less complicated here and now. it may be more so. but that complexity, that intricacy, that is part of what makes this worth it. i went on a date yesterday. they had two faces and three names. his lips felt like safety and possibility and becoming. we didn’t need to connect our brains with wires to see. we spoke the same language, we knew the same songs. our bodies united like an antique lock and key, lubricated with the oil of our passion. i want more. no, i need it. all my friends are trans. i broke up with the ones who weren’t. they understood. change is good. the people that don’t get that will never get us. not all change is for the better, but the potential for growth and for flourishing is all we have. the possibility that tomorrow will be a new day with new rules. and that we’ll be here for each other when it arrives. that we’ll nurture the seeds and each other. that we can. ## [just use mine](https://chromato.graphics/just-use-mine) he’s wanted one, i think, a while still growing his, it takes its time i wonder: _why not just use mine?_ our parts are modular by design they’re aftermarket optimized hot-swappable and still divine then i’m above and he’s below press into him, extend a loan tell him: _touch, like it’s your own_ he strokes it like a precious gift he must be worried, he’ll miss it the gratitude vibrates his wrist he shakes as need remaps the mind and both our systems intertwine we once mistake his flesh for mine i ask him softly if it was good he nods like i rewound the world we had made what no one could ## [birdcage](https://chromato.graphics/birdcage) you ask me if i’m okay ⸻ with elevators? which strikes me odd, the way your eyes do we board & take flight to the control room, 42 teacups on brass hooks carefully cluttered views press my buttons, down with the same force you use to operate machines. the right pressure matters the doors close around your fingers, lights flicker surging harnessed power i can’t look away, i won’t we fall together back to earth where we stumble into your unmarked van. click of clear recognition the next time i step into your cage you kiss my eyes closed and pull a lever           that                   **stops**                              time we’re suspended⸺ trapped in moments of wrought iron pressed against their grates and each other’s full frames              for as long              as we are,              we get to              be happy ## [atlantic
  pacific](https://chromato.graphics/atlantic-pacific) i often wake three hours before your sunrise calls for a response logbook already soaked with ink we laugh, but even if we could, _why constrain our outporings?_ one winter day you ask for notes on undersea strings aware of both the timbre and tempo of these songs we start singing together i fall into an evening rhythm talking and yes moaning into the phonograph, my head then swallowed by the brassy cone our voices sound better inside when you open your ears again there’s so much weather to hear : wind and rain and quiet calm that lasts too long and means too much we keep sailing even without a map true, land divides us more than sea, but these two coasts call to us both maybe it’s the sirens or the sounds of wavecrash against the shore — the dangers of unfathomed depths