Poetry in Motion

Moth Boy

This is not a love poem. But I do love you, I love you the way I love rainbow prisms,

I lay my hand perfectly still against the window sill

to cast the illusion that I am holding those dancing colors in my palm.

but the moment I move,

you slip through my fingers.

I remember the rough wood scraping against my thighs

as we sat in the dark on that park bench.

I remember holding your hand and watching the fire

consume mountains in your eyes.

You tattooed naked women on the inside of your

eyelids so that you don't have to think when your asleep.

You told me once that you didn't like your friends but you

stuck it out because they were the only friends you had.

I have never encountered a creature like you before.

You are the first I don't know how to fix.

But l love you, I love you and I don't even know what kind of love it is.

All I know is that I would slap you in a Walmart

parking lot just to make you feel something.

When I saw your first track meet I noticed that most of the time

you are just running over what not to say in your head.

I asked you how the ice cream tasted you said you didn't know,

because for the past seventeen years all your tongue has been

able to recognize was the bottom of a shoe.

I know that if I asked you how you felt you'd be honest,

So I don't. Because if I asked you how you felt, you'd be honest.

I have said I more times in this poem than I have said you.

You remind me of a godless me.

You are like a stop motion moth being drawn to my

Archimedes rainbow, its not a rainbow.

I think you know that.

Moth boy I don't know how I love you, but I do know that I would

spontaneously kiss you in a Walmart parking lot just

to make you feel something.

I need to make you feel something.

I have never seen that glint in your eye,

that little red monster that, hint of madness.

But I have seen it on paper, and in the way your

hand holds a pen and in the way your wrap your

arm around my shoulders.

I know why you cling to our hands, shoulders and waists.

It keeps your hot air balloon brain from floating away.

It gives you a brief escape from your castle in the sky.

Sometimes I can see it,

I can see the palace you've weaved for yourself.

I see it in your life lines, and the blue heartbeat of your nail beds.

I see it in the lines around your eyes and the

way you run your fingers through your hair.

I think you knew when you built it, it would become your prison.

maybe you thought prison is better than death,

after all what better way to protect yourself,

than hiding from yourself...

within yourself.

I remember that first summer night.

I remember the sticky sweet moisture of your skin

as we laid shoulder to shoulder on top of my too heavy coat.

I remember when you vomited in my hands,

I was left holding nothing but ash.

I remember laying my head on your chest feeling

your heartbeat pulse out the pitch black theater.

I remember being half asleep feeling your lips press against my forehead.

Moth boy,

moth boy you gave me hope.

For a split second you slipped into that little crack on the edge of my

consciousness and and butterfly kissed my memories of men.

I have never encountered a creature like you before.

A creature I don't know how to fix.

I remember when we said good bye the first time,

you were standing at the door of the bus holding your suit case.

I kissed your gross sweaty cheek and I remember how dark your eyes seemed.

I remember our too long hug,

And the way your nose seemed to linger in my hair.

Moth boy I love you.

Not the Romeo and Juliet type of of love,

Not Philia.

I love you the way a raindrop loves the ground even

though it knows it will only burst apart on contact.