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You’re in love with a beautiful boy, but you can’t tell him you love him. Because you just met him. Because the words between you have been harsh and antagonistic. Full of fight that defines your edges. Because you are destined to be alone in this wilderness; of the world, of the New Mexico desert, of your soul.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy, but you can’t tell him you love him. because you are unworthy of love. Because everyone leaves you behind. Because you are wrong somehow on some basic level. You are anger and pain, a star burning out in the vast expanse of space, alone and wounded.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy and you can’t tell him you love him because you cannot taint him with what you are, the secrets that burn through you stronger than priests’ words and the comfort of the twins, remnants of your half-formed family.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him. Because you are not of this earth. Because it is not your time. Because by rights you should be an old man to him. Because you are calloused like the desert sand, worn and brittle under the hot sun and you don’t believe there is anything in this world that could temper you into something soft.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you cannot tell him you love him because he is light and laughter, he is the music that moves through you, mind, body and soul, quietening for the first time all that you strive to hold down, to hold back in the dark.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you cannot tell him you love him because he is an offer, a promise, a chance of a warm place to rest your head, asking no payment other than your presence. But you are frailty painted over so the cracks don’t show, a river of bruises and scars without a mother’s loving touch.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you cannot tell him you love him, because you are a well of regret and broken dreams and you burn, burn like a star collapsing, like an asteroid strike, like a car crash and all you do is weep.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you cannot tell him you love him because he is all the goodness you have found in this world but you are a stranger, a sham, a lie, a cover up that goes so deep you don’t know where the truth is buried.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy and you hope, for the first time you feel hope for this world you don’t belong in that you could belong, that you could find a home, a purpose, a life, in the arms of this beautiful boy. But you can’t tell him you love him because you don’t have the words. Just a plea in your heart that keeps a rhythm stay, stay. Stay.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy. but you can’t tell him you love him because he is hiding too, hurting too, hoping to escape this life he has been left in and you don’t want to add to that pain. You want to watch him soar, to be free. Your pulse cries out to him; go, go, go.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him because he left, traded one desert for another and is beyond your fingertips, you reach out for him like an echo, like the ghost of all the words left between you that go unsaid, your tears cry out to him in the vast expanse of a starless dreamless night. Come home, come home, come home.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy and you can’t tell him you love him because you sent him away, with your lies, your violent actions, that screamed louder than the words you swallowed down, let drown inside you; save me, save me, save me.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him because he is a man grown now, because of a decade of fighting wars separately. Because admitting it now will mean so much more. Will open all those wounds you have cauterised closed, under cheap whiskey and wrong hands in the darkness on your skin.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you cannot tell him you have been stuck, stationary, a vessel of wasted potential and fear that took everything from you and it’s not what he thinks.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy and you can’t tell him you love him because you’re a criminal, a disgrace, because this boy, your boy, is the sun and radiance and warmth and you have always been the monster in the shadow.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy and you can’t tell him you love him because it is too real, because you are not worthy of him. Never worthy of his touch, his forgiveness, the benediction of loving him. The calm his presence brings to all your chaos.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy and you can’t tell him you love him because the sirens are too loud and there’s a countdown prepared to take away every answer you had a question to. And you cannot bear to watch him burn with you.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him because the words would not do justice. Because there is no language to explain your reverence. Because you’d rather worship him, with your hands, your mouth. Any way you can. kiss away the tears, love away the nightmares, find absolution in only each other.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him because it isn’t your time yet, because you have made mistakes, made choices that burn, that tear, because this boy is a crash landing and you need time to find your way home.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him because the words are never simple between you, they bite. Because you don’t know how to do this, because you are scared of screaming how much you love him into the universe and only hearing it laugh back.
You’re in love with a beautiful boy but you can’t tell him you love him. Because he knows, he knows, it is in the fabric of your very being. Because the words still aren’t enough, because you say it in deeds, every day. Because it pulses through your body stronger than the powers you were forced to control out, out into the vast expanse of stars you have watched so carefully; cosmic, cosmic, cosmic.