floating down the otonabee

so, i've flooded you with lots of poetry lately. mostly because it keeps interrupting my essay. 

whine, whine.

but i've failed to give you much life context. ma bad.

its spring. i can feel it in my coffee snarfing, schoolboy giggling, stone skipping bones. i have crushes abound, and deadlines trying relentlessly to buckle my spirit (and failing beautifully). 

the poem i wrote about manhood was inspired by a very swoon-worthy kiss moment at a gay dance a couple weeks back. it threw me for a few intersecting identity loops. a gay man and a gay jes and what i know about gender and what i know about me and old barriers crashing down with wet, sloppybeautiful lips, and a stubbled chin like a welcome mat instead of a weapon or a wile.

dumbstruck, dumbfounded, and all around disabledlanguage surprised by my own skin and sexy, i processed. and processed and processed. 

oh, repining heart of mine. longfellow would smack me, i know. but the truth is, if it feels real, it is. solipcynicism aside, i think it can be fair to allow yourself to experience something without jumping ship in a rejection and self-loathing dingy.

so, i poemed it. as erotically and palpably as i felt it. and then i performed it at a poetry slam that i had not predicted he would be at. and whaddya know... he figured out it was about him, was cool and flattered about it, and messaged me the proverbial 'i'm a boy-only gay... i thought you were a girl-only gay too?'

i wanted to say everything. my 5 year journey in bones and boobs and gender and sex and 'well maybe men too, in an auden sorta way...' but sometimes a word count is a useful thing.

so i paused. i vented to a. who happened to be sitting behind me at natas - someone i trust, but who isn't directly connected to my day-to-day life. told her about my desires. about how it was okay that he was flattered and confused because i was too. told her about his 100% boy gay response. and how, i guess the gay boy in me likes the (100%) gay boy in him. in that erotic, sultry dark alley makeout men kind of way. and she said, you know, that's hot. you should tell him that. 

and i thought, yeah. yeah why can't i?

she threw in a great line for me too about my mouth not having a vagina (if its any consolation), which felt sexy and flirty and confident like i'd like to be.

its not even about unrequited or pining or whatever sometimes. more like, creative autocartography. and this fear of being alone....god. i'm starting to think its a thinly veiled excuse not to trust myself.