Matthew

The taste of cement at my chest compartmentalised my hope and desire. What was I.

And why was it so wrong to be such.

Why did I have to be such.

Every cascading waterfall, cheeks rosy, now loathing the very embers he made feel desirable. Those features that he said drew him into me, but I knew for that moment it should have drowned him.

He should've been disgusted at what we became: what I was, what he allowed himself to be. right?

I knew no certainty and that's what I hated most.

I wasn't like him to dismiss, forget those stones throne at my head. I couldn't look from the burning flags nor the riots or from Mathew.

My name was no longer biblical, but it was an anagram of stories lost to scripture. My name bore blood, my name was not mine. My name made me lament, made my abhorrent skin turn green when I put Shepard to the end of it.

My name meant loss.

I hated everything I represented when I missed him.

And so I cried until lamenting was ended by tire and drought. Until I couldn't lift an arm to my face or limp ness off bedroom floor.

"Hi James"

I couldn't stay away, like a child and a cookie jar.

"Hi, are you okay? You sound off."

I began breathing heavily through the line so my erratic heartbeat wouldn't drown out my thoughts. I scrambled for lies to tell him, for new ammo as I, a marksman.

"Matthew"

"Can I- you come over, please."

"Okay I'm on my way"

"Bye"

"See you, pooh"

It was less than 20 minutes until he stood frantic and dishevelled at my door. The sight of light hitting his curls pulled me out of those walls for a moment, left me in awe for a moment.

"What happened," he clutched my face until it stung.

"I- he," I took in a breath "I told Adam that I'm gay."

He looked bewildered, mouth agape like a fish. I wondered what he saw behind my words as fear began rising in his fingertips, turning them pale and freezing.

"why''

I couldn't even answer that. I felt so stupid.

"I don't know''

"Is he mad," that was many horrors hidden in one. He knew what would happen if his anger appeared.

"I don't know"

He danced with those same devils I did, you saw it in his distance.

So I tried to rescue him.

"Do you want to go upstairs to my room"

He nodded.

And so we walked, and he knew I had an ulterior motive. There's no way he didn't.

I opened the door for and he looked past me, until I grasped him between my lips. Begging to forget.

He kissed with a hesitance that was foreign to him, I grasped with a hunger that we normally slit equally. He evaded whilst I executed.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder., and another.

Until he pushed me off him, full force.

James just stared.

He didn't search, he didn't seem hurt nor shocked he just looked at me. It felt like my brother again like I had done wrong but I never knew where right was.

Like my naivety led me astray, and I never cared to look for the path of the 'righteous'.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to force myself on you, I thought," but I didn't think.

"It's okay, I was just shocked"

He was lying.

"Your brother, what if he tells your parents. Then what"

I learn to fear God again, or pray to the universe, or looked to a burning city.

"I don't know"

I paused.

"I'm scared," my voice cracked.

He looked to me, analysing. Until his gaze became abruptly fixed, I learned the hard way to fear that look. He stared at me this time, like I was not quite pitiful nor conquest.

It was almost patronising, no, it was.

He strides to me in small leaps, and grabbed every inch of hair he could clutch. And engulfed me.

I tasted everyone of the hairs of his neck down to his loins. My mind was blank in the best moments, controlled by lust and his greed and my pride.

"Matthew" he'd pant every once in a while.

Attempting to bring reality to this chimerical event, I memorised each breath like the back of my right palm.

I knew his mannerism and how he'd coil and undo.

But I never knew his motive. Until it was too late.

I realised so late why it was at moments like this he'd give himself to me so ineptly so recklessly. My groin told me it was a gift from God but I knew it was a devilish form of manipulation we both were victim to.

He gave away his body for me, so that we wouldn't have to give away those thoughts and feeling (the strong ones too hard to hear).

Those things I mulled over didn't rest at his feet instead his robe or garment or my wondering body snake like.

I felt like the serpent sometimes, then like Adam. Other time I tasted forbidden fruit but lost the knowledge of the universe, I didn't know right from wrong.

I knew he tasted good.

I knew his squirm and squeals.

I knew my body engulfed or engulfing.

That day we finished with my eyes to the wall. It emptied me, purging my recent sin. He was asleep, I thought, both naked yet I felt less clothed. Too vulnerable. Too lost.

What had I done.

Why did I do it.

"Are you okay," He groaned awaking, I never slept.

"Yes," I turned to him " I'm fine, as long as I'm with you." A partial lie.

"Touch me"

I smiled, I had learnt how physical he was. That was our undoing, his touches intermixed with mine and the crooks and crannies I knew.

"How"

"Hug me, please"

"Marry me?"

He paused, then a brash smile enough to cover the surface of Saturn and its rings. Made me want to claim him with a ring evermore.

"Shut up"

I fell onto his shoulders smiling.

"I'm serious, marry me."

"How?"

"We'll find a way, as long as you agree"

He picked up my face so that I looked to him.

With such delicacy as though I were a new born.

"Matthew," he breathed "one day."

"When?"

"When we leave here"

I caught his smile like a plague.

"Really"

"Yes, I promise."

I held his chin, falling into his autumn.

"One day?"

"Yes, because I love you. Matthew Letesha-Robinson. To-be."

"I love you more," almost tearing up "James Letesha-Robinson to-be."

His nose pressed against mine and I smiled my tears away. His lips grazed mine, my heart wept a song as I danced in the flavours of I do, a spring wedding.

"It's got a great ring to it, Letesha-Robinson."

"It does"

He pulled me in for a hug. So I muffled arising sobs with his shoulder blaze.

"I can't wait"

"Neither can I"

"I love you"