Descent into Madness (in D Minor)
I’ve been doing more cocaine these days to keep busy but
this poem is not about me. Oh, you know who I saw
the other day? It was that boy, the one with a metronome
for a tongue, who we’ve both spread open like warm bread
though we’d never admit as much in our usual company; he said,
would you believe it, the bus was late again! Bad things happen
to bad people; end scene! Another boy we know has left the city;
something about us living trapped in varied shades of
pursuit; he always loved speaking in riddles, that nervous queen.
Have you been out and about? I spend too much time pinned
against walls, my mouth a vehicle driving men by the truck-load
off into the sunset. I love playing hero when the opportunity
arises, even if they forget my name. Perhaps unrelated, but I had
a dream where you and me and the boy we’ve both fucked
had become wilting green stalks in an alpine field of lavender, so lonely
beneath the last piss of twilight; would you believe it, I was so certain
I’d fail my upcoming biology exam (why do the body’s mechanics remain such
a mystery to me?). Have you traveled lately? I know the answer,
but asking my question helps decimate the silence. Whose hands are these,
anyhow? I recently read a collection of poems about sex addiction
(an addiction to vintage pornos, specifically) and it made me think of
all the faces I make after dark. I think I’m lonely. But also, I think
of what you sound like when your tongue is launched in its eager
trajectories. I think of the brown bush of pubic hair around your cock
and I think about how warm the tears darning my face would feel as I do
my best to swallow it whole, if you’d allow it. I think I’m depressed;
I say this in the way that all gay men fancy themselves depressed.
Mostly, I’m a compilation of depressions where
someone once leaned…or is it lay? Lied? I’m sad because I’m stuck
with these limbs, these lips, this keen awareness that
the mirror won’t be first to blink in our daily standoff. Wasn’t it you
who said I do well with a spotlight? Let’s polish off the bag, you and I;
I think we’ve earned it! Have you tried any good drugs lately?
My dealer now carries the pink stuff, that neon powder, calls it
faggot dust, you and I such pragmatic fairies. My Fire Island housemate
swears by mephedrone, but he has trouble sleeping, because he knows
we’re all dying. We’re getting older; why shouldn’t I find new ways
to twist my veins in release? I’m stuck thinking about the end; the rapture
sound just filthy with glamour, doesn’t it? Attaboy: neck bent,
deep breath! This poem isn’t about me, and yet, I know we’re all just
limbs seen at different angles; removed moments of night, catching different
spears of light. Must our intimacies be so fucking loud? Would you
believe it; summer is just around the corner! I hear its jaw
ringing with the chime of renewed use, the high-
pitched scream of machinery coming back to life, ready to do
what it does best. I saw another boy you’ve slept with and he
had gained weight (to be clear, not on his body, but in the
crumpling shape of his eyes when they ask about
you, in the crush of his misplaced desire when I say
oh, he’s quite happy; married now!). He bargains with me, I bargain
with death, we show our hands in a last-ditch effort, then rinse & repeat
the following night at a sexy party where no load is refused. You know,
I was just at a birthday party, lavish ordeal, tiered cake as vanilla
as the crowd in attendance, and I couldn’t help but think of the bodies
we’re still counting like birthday wishes (blow out the candles!). Did
I mention that he lost weight? (to be clear, weight from his
body, weight from the solitary confinement cell he’s run fingers raw
and bloody in by scratching the walls, counting the days). No one feels
bad anymore, because bad is such relative taxonomy for our
nightly foils and aren’t we all just walking housefires in search of oxygen,
or upward mobility? New York is teething; in the dark, it stirs like
an infant drowning in afterbirth; we light up cigarettes on your patio
and pretend not to hear, because we are so. good. at pretending!
Someone told me not be depressed; I’ve folded him into
a dreamcatcher, I’ve hung that boy by my mind’s windows
so that maybe he can filter and flex and finesse the way
sadness sneaks in when I’m not looking. Yes, I would like
to not be so sad; I would like to count my limbs and pretend that
when one door closes, another body will split open. Yes, I’ve been
doing more cocaine these days in an act of defiance
against the body’s settling winter. We are all separate. Desperate.
Disparate?! That’s the word! We are falling through glass skies.
They shatter, our bones the groundwork of forgotten sorcery.
Sometimes we get lucky; we crash into one another. Our limbs
a vortex of their own displaced passions. Would you look at that:
maybe I’ve loved you this whole time, after all!
One day we’ll know that boys are just bones that have
learned to sing. Warm bodies until they are not.
DANIEL BRENNAN (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he’s in love, just as often he’s not. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Sho Poetry Journal, and Trampset. He can be found on Twitter @DanielJBrennan_
JORDAN VERES is a Jewish musician/songwriter/composer/lyricist/producer, shutterbug, poet, sculptor, artist, and welder currently residing in the Upstate of South Carolina. Jordan execrates where he currently hangs his hat because he is surrounded by a bunch of bigoted mossbacks. Meanwhile, Jordan is an avid supporter of Bernie Sanders and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
