Sometimes I can feel myself leaving this space
Lifting to catch his summit
Listing hundreds of reasons that are pulled from my lips like man after man
Candy is the word for it-
The candy your mother tells you not to take from strangers
Only for you to grow up and find comfort in strangers
The same way you found comfort in her shadows,
In strangers there is no memory, no friendship to tarnish with your touch.
In strangers you find an absolute
An impersonal reassurance-
There is no friend I can see as a man in the ways I need to see him;
Detached from myself
Incomprehensible to one who has come to learn of men through me
Instead of reflecting my hatred for myself in the ways his biology asks for me to touch him-
Can I unlearn all the ways to touch him?
If I asked him if he were an object
He would begin to introduce to me a deeper knowledge of him than I could listen to
Before calling him friend,
If he asked me the same I would quickly agree
So that we might be more like letters instead of men.
He talks about the age of consent
As if I could ever consent to the ways he could perceive me-
Thoughts have no barrier like touch,
There is no way to consent to the wanting of myself
No way to deny their self-proclaimed right to quietly fetishize and fantasize
Out of shame for what I am,
This candy he compares getting my consent to taking from a baby,
The candy I never wanted the taste of
Once I learned you can never rid of the taste of men-
As if I were something more and less than man in a more shameful way than gods were,
As if the venom down his lips was from hunger from something inhumane
As if I were candy
Lifting to catch his summit
Listing hundreds of reasons that are pulled from my lips like man after man
Candy is the word for it-
The candy your mother tells you not to take from strangers
Only for you to grow up and find comfort in strangers
The same way you found comfort in her shadows,
In strangers there is no memory, no friendship to tarnish with your touch.
In strangers you find an absolute
An impersonal reassurance-
There is no friend I can see as a man in the ways I need to see him;
Detached from myself
Incomprehensible to one who has come to learn of men through me
Instead of reflecting my hatred for myself in the ways his biology asks for me to touch him-
Can I unlearn all the ways to touch him?
If I asked him if he were an object
He would begin to introduce to me a deeper knowledge of him than I could listen to
Before calling him friend,
If he asked me the same I would quickly agree
So that we might be more like letters instead of men.
He talks about the age of consent
As if I could ever consent to the ways he could perceive me-
Thoughts have no barrier like touch,
There is no way to consent to the wanting of myself
No way to deny their self-proclaimed right to quietly fetishize and fantasize
Out of shame for what I am,
This candy he compares getting my consent to taking from a baby,
The candy I never wanted the taste of
Once I learned you can never rid of the taste of men-
As if I were something more and less than man in a more shameful way than gods were,
As if the venom down his lips was from hunger from something inhumane
As if I were candy
- Rubber Soul's blog
- Sprout
- Log in or register to post comments
thegreenone
Aug 25, 2021
It's such a simple yet complex piece. Superb!
no way a male poet?! yes way