After Hours
27 February 2021 Saturday Poetry Prompt: frustrated history
In order to get started, I push past the glass and steel door, remember when I could smoke inside here, and I still did on Saturday after closing time, spent the night between each other, sharing cigarettes, gasping about the catechism when I thought you were nothing holy, but of course that was me, and you were doing better
comparing scars on the chin that made shaving fucking tough, moaning on the lack of good hair in Winnipeg, tripping off to the bathroom to make sure it’s still good, us, me dyed black to escape the wool, you with your Vietnamese colouring, blue green red in the hair now, today we both escaped the razor
and I’m still sure I don’t know how to love you properly, this coming here, yes barely restrained touching, and you wanting to go further and me not knowing how, bitching about a girl in order to deflect, and threading names into the conversation to ensure we’re not alone, not high, or high but not alone right now.
J.D. Harms 2021
Prompt:
My bisexuality, complicated and frustrating (not to mention how many years it took to get comfortable with the term) as it has been, usually found me in close companionship with some incredible gay men who loved me, I think, but didn’t try to…
