THE DAY I HELD YOU

skyros brought us no joy,
it plagued our hearts with
rainfall and storms,
and with it sought the blackening
of your sun, eyes of honey
steely and cold, and
although you said you loved me,
and mumbled the words onto my
lips and chest and everything
pleasurable, i could taste it
upon your mouth: the displeasure,
the drawing of a breath, the
hesitance.

and with that hesitance came
the contortion of your
face that day, in which our
bodies had grown into that of men:
with muscles lengthening the inches
of our make—yours fine and tender
and soft, lean and with that of fragility,
but mine held the best of greeks,
swiftness and precision and accuracy keen.
and in your eyes i saw it there:
your love, your desire, your cunning smile—

"odysseus asked me to go to troy."

you do not flinch at my words, but
instead wrapped that warmth around
my cold and shuddering frame:
i am of the moon, my
mothers blood thrives in me still,
expectations dawn and peek with
the sky and shore, and where water
touches the land so does mother—
her eyes watching, her blood boiling:
i am a fool to ever think i could
hide this ounce of hope from her.

"i am going to troy."

you dropped.
your smile was
gone, your honey
eyes blinking. once,
twice, thrice: it was
as though we were
thirteen once more,
and your heart of frail
thread had snapped—
as though mother sat
before us, and her eyes
bore into your soul:

"come with me, patroclus."

i whispered into your neck,
the veins of mortality so
intriguing to me: who held
the gods in his skin and embedded
into the seeds of his skull, but not
my heart, for it laid with you:
secure and safe and soaring—

"come with me, patroclus."

i say again, this time on your
cheek, nose grazing the soft
skin of our youth, hands
nestling the crook of your
back, hair of gold, of the sun,
kissing that of yours honey and
warmth.

"come with me, patroclus."

i begged in your silence,
kissing your temple,
your neck, your lips,
your cheek, your arms,
your chest, your legs,
you—

"i will go with you."

is all you say: a breath,
a whisper, a fraction of your
lips move—

and i am rejoicing, crying,
laughing, smiling,
and you, my patroclus, my
lover dear, are nestled in my
arms: safe and secure and soaring.
for you are my heart.
without you, i am but a god.

you make me mortal; you are my humanity.