Work Text:
one day in the middle of the war
you smear bloodied knuckles across your teeth
and share a smile with your best friend,
before your belly bottoms out
with the sudden, explosive realization that
you want to take him apart.
his shoulders are bigger now but
he still laughs like he’s tangled in rope
struggling to come loose from
the cage of his flaring ribs and tall spine.
he holds himself like his happiness is trapped
and your fingers itch to untie the last bonds
that keep him from you, to
unravel him till he’s boneless
and boundless
shivering with want—
except. you know better than
to give into this urge.
it’s the shock, you think
the blooming horror that flooded your bones
—that first night in kreischberg
that last night in azzano
and every godforsaken night since—
when you realized you would die
and he wouldn't even get
a body to mourn.
it’s the shock, and some seed of darkness
that's taken root in your heart and your groin
and can never see the light of day
can never be given the room to grow
not in the glow of his smile,
or the benediction of his eyes.
just the shock, that makes you revisit
those days when you were weighed down
with shame, minutes marked by furtive looks
and quickened breath
the restless squirm of
constant,
confusing
desire.
(there was an entire week in '33
when even hearing his voice
would ignite something
unholy in the hollows of
your chest.)
that's why you're so thrown now
why you taste metal on your tongue and
despair in your throat—
because you locked that strongbox up.
buried it deep, leered at any pretty thing
with soft lips and lush hips
anything so he'd stop peeking at you
with that knowing furrow between his brows
whispering thoughts in the dark that
were too daring for what you were ready to
admit to yourself
let alone to him.
because, see—
you’ve never been quite able to
figure what you could salvage if you
let that torch you carry
turn into something wild and reckless,
the kind of thing that burns everything it touches,
flaring hot and wild until
it's only ashes.
because, see—
where else does the fire go?
it either snuffs out or flames higher and
you don’t think you’d live through either option.
so it’s safer for everyone involved
if you keep your counsel,
if you keep your hands close and let
your love for him stay enduring but
unchanneled by
the skim of your lips
on his skin.
because, see—
he saved you
what ‘you’ there was left to save
and in the midst of the stink and sorrow of this
goddamned battlefield
he’s got enough things to carry.
it’s not his fault, not his burden to bear
that you can’t look him in the face
without imagining the way his mouth would twist
if you crawled inside him to stay.
one day, in the middle of the war
you look at your best friend and you wonder
how he’d taste—like gunpowder and mud and the rain
that never seems to fucking stop?
would it be warm and slick and messy
and would it fill up the emptiness
that yawns through your ribs?
it doesn’t matter.
it’s never mattered.
la petite mort or a bullet through the brain
it’s him you’re dying for anyway.