I’ve started using Grindr again
for the first time in years. I used to call myself
an addict and went to meetings but not for sex.
For the feeling of falling into a body, not caring
//
about them as much as they do about me. I’m
an asshole. I’m only attracted to people if they’re
wild about me and I imagine it. I imagine it wrong.
(I’d be less honest if this poem were written
//
to somebody else, but again I remind you
dear reader, you live inside this body with me.
Can you hear me? Is it you, better half?
Are we the same?) I’m sitting here, we’re sitting here.
//
That ship is gone finally from our sliver of the water
and I don’t know what to look at. How beautiful
today is despite the wind. I can look at anything.
The weeds in the sidewalk cracks, the split
//
in the white concrete, the mountains painted
onto the pillars holding the highway up.
But moving things are easier to focus on.
I’ve spent too much time with my eyes roaming.
//
That beige minivan, vomit-green Toyota Tacoma,
mauve Honda Civic passing on the highway are too quick
and people, well. I’ve already spent too much
time watching people and here we are.
This poem was included in my book "I want you to feel ugly, too," which can be read on issuu.
Read part 1 of this poem
Read part 2 of this poem
Read part 3 of this poem
Read part 5 of this poem
About the Creator
Joe Nasta
Hi! I'm a queer multimodal artist writing love poems in Seattle, one half of the art and poetry collective Eat Yr Manhood, and head curator of Stone Pacific Zine. Work in The Rumpus, Occulum, Peach Mag, dream boy book club, and others. :P
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