like a rocky promontory

'and like all lovers and sad people, i am a poet.' ari / gay / i write and listen to chet baker and drink ungodly amounts of coffee

[oberrons]

10/30/20 | some self-indulgent lines on a snowy day

[oberrons]

it's the red hair in his beard that i touch when we're sitting on a hill on a sunny november day and it's the feeling of running my fingers through the curls behind his ear and it's the spray of hair peeking above his collar that flutter my heart and it's his narrow hips and it's the tight skin across his ribs and it's the pull of denim across his knees that make my mind a renegade and it's his fingers tapping the pendant under my shirt as his cheek rests on my chest and it's the feeling of my lips on the tip of his nose and it's his leg thrown lazily across mine that make my breath come fast

chicken. / ala. 

[oberrons]

flyaways and bare legs look like family look like the boys i never got to be look like the brother i am growing to be i am growing to understand nostalgia washes over me not like a flood more like a steady stream i'm thinking home i'm thinking the grass field outside the house i only visited once i'm thinking what if i had stayed? what if it wasn't so bad? what if i'm just making it all up what if it was different how could  it be different home pine forests peaks lavender on the dashboard blackberries rivers trails and me longing for the city and me now longing for the woods walking running through the woods pretending these pines are my pines pretending this river runs to a different sea pretending  i don't miss him i don't want to i want father brother finding myself in men i don't know men i've lost men  i can't bear to find again men i'm just getting to know i'm walking running climbing am i becoming myself or becoming more him i don't know but i hope it's real it feels real this slap on the pavement this breath coming hard this pain this pleasure it seems to run in the family

running toward my past. ala. 

[oberrons]

climbing gyms near me climbing gym membership climbing gym day pass tattoo parlor boston cheap tattoo parlors cheap safe tattoos intuitive eating tips healthy living tips how much coffee is too much how much sugar is too much how to be healthy but still eat sweets ed recovery inspo how to love your body how to be body positive but still healthy how to lead a healthy lifestyle best cheap running shoes how to run longer train tickets to nyc cheap places to stay in nyc best bagel shops in nyc jewish farm co ops leftist jewish farms independent vegetable farming how to get outdoors in the city how to be an adult

wanting: a search history poem

[oberrons]

he stops playing for a moment guitar lies waiting, waiting he returns he's wearing a thin white shirt now i can't turn away just visible a tattoo or a birthmark with his kippah and his israeli boyfriend i hypothesize birthmark but the question remains unanswered and desperately intruiging i look up meet his eyes look away he begins to play again

oneg. ala. 

[oberrons]

spears of intense shame and guilt punctuating this haze of exhaustion. pretending i'm a beat reporter pretending coffee is the same thing as water pretending stimulant is the same as happiness avoiding eyes making faces at the ground some day everyone will see my name and think hurtful, wrongdoer, shunned. working to death to kill my sins

grey skin. ala. 

[oberrons]

i have a nervous achey yearning to hold you tight. the breeze rustles the trees and carries a lonely strain of radio up to my balcony. it is dark. i can feel your chest within my arms but it is only the wind.

longing for a boy on a spring night. ala.

[oberrons]

i love a boy with long legs apple-curve lips taller than me hair that would look better messier (if he'd only listen to me) buys me cappuccinos chest i wanna touch too skinny (just right) voice like sin loves me hates me loves me not i don't trust him with my heart but i want to.

against my better judgement. / ala. 

[oberrons]

i see you in the wood-grain of café countertops in rows of oxford shirts in flowers i'd pick for you in movies i'd take you to in pipes you'd smoke in our kitchen while the coffee brews i hear you in bach's cello in g major in rain on the leaves in your headthrownback laugh i see you in boxers all long legs  bare feet on morning tile we sip coffee (black) and i watch the curve of your lips on the cup in the morning light

feelings for you / ala. 

[evoketheforms]

Rebecca Lindenberg | Interview in The Believer | March 27 2012 

[oberrons]

the beard is new, and to my surprise, it suits you. you’re good at so much, even beard-growing, it appears: it’s no more than a fortnight old, but already dense and looking like steel wool. well-trimmed on top, a little unruly below where the edges curl up under your ear. the patch of white near your chin makes you look distinguished, and belies the age your boyish face hid so well. you’re rubbing your eyes, and i’m almost worried for a moment before you tell me you’ve just woken up (it’s two in the afternoon). i understand: packing’s a bitch, and all the goodbyes can’t be easy. you’re a little distracted, and i can’t blame you one bit, but soon enough our eyes are locked and it’s the most honest conversation i’ve had in months: the future, our plans, provence, unemployment, emotions, uncertainty, the desert, human connection. we’re both on a precipice, you about to jump and me approaching the edge, and perhaps it is from this connection that our mutual unfolding emerges. my fingers are drumming the rim of the to-go coffee cup, part fidget and part nervous habit, and i’m soaking up every part of you: the little subtle hollow under each cheekbone, the short-trimmed hair at the edge of your beard, the dark hair of your chest just visible under the collar of your shirt, the hazel-brown of your eyes, the scar on your neck about which i never got around to inquiring. it’s three-fifteen, you’ve got to get to admin, and you tell me you’re waking up saturday morning and heading out. we hug, and for once in my life it’s not me who hangs on longest: i’m still pondering this. i am resolved to lose none of the minutiae of you. this over-warm conversation will remain crystalline in my mind; even as the towers of chicago rise to embrace you, i’ll keep this image in my mind. you, all of you, in the absence of you.

cool see. u then., or, wise old owl. // ala.

[oberrons]

drinking cappuccino in paris, golden sunlight streaming in. the goldfinch by donna tartt in my hand. the curtains billowing lazily in the soft breeze. a warm croissant on the table. legs crossed just so, people-watching. • narrow trousers around quick, thin legs. going places. hat pulled down around my ears and scarf wrapped close, hands in pockets. billowing breath. the frosty biting air. the tips of my ears going just a little bit numb. navigating narrow sidewalks and thoroughfares. -- parisian seasons. // ala.

[oberrons]

sections of your hair slip between my fingers like blades of grass or the pages of an old and yellowing book as i take your head in my hand. i plunge slowly into your lips, salty and beckoning like the ocean, and i am unfolding beneath you.

celestial boy is a sensory delight. // ala.

[oberrons]

often, when she is angry, she is very cruel, and i think how she condemned him for pretending not to see me cry. oh, if she could see my trembling neck now.

depersonalize. // ala.

[oberrons]

his lips, dusty rose and slightly parted, seem to me like the ripest of all cherries, impossible to resist taking in my mouth and tasting their sweet ambrosia. freckles fall across his neck like sand sprinkling from an open palm, and the soft ridges and hollows of his throat dip and rise like mossy hills and dells. his shoulders are two globes, fruits to be plucked and palmed, with downy fuzz upon them like peaches as they rest in the hollow of my hands. two hands cupping river-water to waiting lips form his hips, the hard curvatures like an ancient artifact that rubs gold under my thumb. the morning sun shines upon his legs and gently paints dark and light the winding rivers and streams that run so delicately from his body to the ground. i want nothing more than to run my fingers from his honeyed lips over his mountainous chest, through the valley of his hips and from the soft skin of his inner thigh to his delicate ankle, for his body is a foreign land, beautiful and exciting, exotic and enticing, and i crave to know it well.

ah men, amen. / ala.

[oberrons]

just give me slow mornings with the soft sunlight streaming in and my lover's warm back under my arm

john keats is gay and standing in my kitchen // ala

[oberrons]

She is battered, broken, beaten, and beautiful. She is a tawny grey like the infinite monoliths of Stonehenge. She is soft and hard: undulating coils of branches folded upon themselves, cracked skin lines like the inlets of the Nile; she is cleft in two by lightning or fire or some such dagger of God. Within, she is a sullied white, and where she touches heaven, she traces the wind with a thousand flickering verdant fingers. She is old, and young, and curious, and forever. Beyond her are her sisters, basking in a golden glow as birdsong drops honey through the air.

pocket park. / ala.