chromatographics

gay poems by mb bischoff

#💛

6 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.

readwrite

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

poison

the black bottle kept just out of reach of those who fear my obsidian liquid

a toxicology report: deadly in large doses but taken with care the hurting heals us

sure, share a nightcap wince with me in pain we need this to sting no easier, knowing it

small sips are sweet deeper drinks, bitter stone fruit can’t mask a burning this intense

scared to let you see me like this — red eyes pierce pewter framing you want, no, need to

as the spirit fully hits there’s no stopping this             drink. the cork is broken now

eigengrau

the only way to ignore the sunrise is to close our eyes at daybreak

white light pours through delicate curtain lace— an unseen ocean roiling

more to see and to say as blue waves beckon, calling toward tomorrow

but no matter what we try, there’s no true darkness. light seeps in everywhere

the shade we find there feels almost ultraviolet; we see it together, apart

in separate beds, rooms on opposed coasts, we conjure the same cosmos

this color could be our own. when other lovers see it too, do they know we bathe in it?

108ºC

sunny side up eggs cook with sunshine denaturation begs, bonds across time

waveformed Q train park date prospects PascalCase names everywhere object

polycarbonate layers exposed gold livewire angel of gay prayers film stock, unexpired

bumblebee chapstick seeing in rainbows jet turbine fuel drips one port won’t close

bioavailable

there’s always a question when i come into contact with the substance of you.

how much of you can i absorb? when you enter my bloodstream, swim my veins where they lead.

the longer your half-life, the more i’ll feel you there, coursing through my core.

the closer your shape gets to nature, the better i can fully take you in.

drink you or swallow you or let you dissolve under my tongue every day as

you transform me with area under your curves. when is my next dose?