#touch

4 poems

mirror

i’m sorry i bumped into you. i thought you were a mirror. your clear surface showed what they saw of me then.

parties are meant for diffusion, but we focused instead. twisting the lens to almost make out what was there.

i’m sorry i couldn’t touch you. i thought you were a mirror. i feared leaving greasy prints for everyone to see.

museums of mailboxes and phones reveal past and future connections. a present — behind smudged display glass.

i’m sorry you didn’t see me waving at you in the city. i thought you were a mirror. you weren’t yet waving back.

being gay is hard sometimes. hotel bathrooms get steamy, you can’t always get the right angle before the image blurs.

i’m sorry we were interrupted. i thought you were a mirror. i never dreamed anyone would walk through it and shatter the glass.

i need to move but i can’t sleep. some things aren’t done yet. i’m hiding from sunrise, from men, under blankets and cardboard towers.

i’m sorry i looked so long. i knew you were a mirror, but i couldn’t spot the vanishing point. some reflections distort; yours perfects.

have you ever had a girl cause engineering just for it, though

weeks of design on a one-off built for the thing — to program it

on the airplane commit to it: make it perfect, then install it

when you get there, show it slowly touch a curved shape feel its edges

unarchive it press it with force watch it open, animated

every app must have its settings even if they never vary

have you ever caused a toy to glow from within white light blinking

when you read it you can see it: why it matters, what you’ll put there

have you ever caused a thing to strip itself bare kernel panic!

this will only take a second, last a lifetime deep within you

type it all out hold it down now your domain, name hit the button

have you ever felt an object as it’s written becoming yours

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

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