A glimpse of something Holy, (where it wasn't meant to be.)
A poem fic for Pos & Scripps, because they’re poetry nerds and so am I. (Posting here for national poetry day.)
You’re boys when it starts.
Before it starts, even
and in your youth, it feels like a game.
Forever reaching for something just beyond your grasp,
chasing god,
or boys who are far from it.
There are times when playing is just playing,
practise, or rehearsal
for what, you don’t yet know.
But it becomes impossible,
irresistible,
to not turn every song into a duet.
Unused to being anything other than the background for his,
the sound of your own voice frightens you.
You wonder what it’s like,
to be so brave,
so bold,
so brazen.
He’s scared too, you know that,
but the fear seems to drive him to places you think you cannot reach.
Up and out of himself,
far away from you.
You wonder what will happen to him
when the courage of youth wears off.
You hope it never does.
There’s already a bitter edge to his words
that your heart can’t quite stand to hear.
You’re boys when it starts,
but men before long,
and when he disappears you think that maybe
it’s the end of that.
Or the end of something.
The longing you’d teased him for years before,
doesn’t sit as well on your shoulders.
It grows quiet with time,
with patience,
with maturity.
But sometimes you revisit songs,
or poems,
or films,
and you know the words so well
you can hear them only in his voice,
like he’s standing right there,
leaning into your space.
In the memory,
he says something you can’t quite catch.
In the memory,
you laugh.
When you see him again it’s like no time has passed at all,
but you think maybe you’ve let too much slip by.
You say you should have looked for him,
he says he didn’t want you to.
You ask him if it’s better now,
he smiles, but doesn’t answer.
You ask him if he still sings,
he laughs, and tells you,
not without music.
So you play something old,
something familiar,
his voice is different now,
but it resonates in your chest the way it always had.
You wonder if all that time spent on your knees
could have been better served elsewhere.
A note rings out until it is no longer a note,
a song no longer a song.
Instead, a symphony so loud
it would drown out all sounds,
but the jackhammer beating of your own heart
when he looks at you and sees...
Something.
A something that scares you
but excites you all the same.
You feel lost in it
like a ship out at sea in a storm.
Then he smiles,
and you see it.
Him.
As he was.
Still the same,
just like you.
Softly,
because everything happens softly,
the world shifts.
There is no way to ask God to forgive you,
for something he meant you to have.
He tastes better than any wine,
the shape of his name fits your mouth better than any prayer,
and you have heard countless words,
songs,
poems,
written about the way
the touch of a lover
feels like heaven.
You don’t know if you believe in heaven anymore.
You think you may have found it anyway.
You hold him too tightly,
but he understands.
He always did.
He kisses you too longingly,
but you understand.
You always do.
There’s too much to be said,
and nothing at all,
because you’ve said it all before.
Only this time
there is no hiding
behind characters
and stanzas
and music.
This time there is only you.
Only him.
Only this.
And a feeling that whatever you were chasing,
was beside you all along.
