i want to kiss you through your hockey mask
by Lip Manegio
title is from the song “In the Army Now” by Joyce Manor
stench of summer, playing in the streets, screaming at cars. touching, but
only enough. never enough. love like amoxicillin. love like violent pink.
love like a rancid stomach and the pot my mother kept for the sick. love like
you slept over at mine the night before church. love like your hand face up
on my knee in the pews. i wanted you because i wanted you. because it was
what i knew best to do. you taught me to tie cherry stems and keep secrets
the same month an acne scar bloomed under your left eye, brandiron red
where you just couldn’t stop picking. i wonder if anyone else has ever noticed
it, has dug the pad of their curious finger in, memorized its exact diameter.
where did we find the time to invent a new language for gentleness. learning
suture before we could ever dream of holding. confessional booths before
we knew just how much wrong we could do. razor burn budding down the side
of your throat, my lips chasing it. a whole future balancing right on the tip
of our tongues. you gave me your favorite pocketknife the last august morning
you left in the chevy pickup, kicking up a smokescreen of dust in your wake.
i never said it. not when your face was morning dew, not when i was busying
myself fretting over the rising marsh. not when the sun was golden egg cracking
against the horizon, or when i could still stand on the deck and watch you bleed
through the back of your t-shirt, dirge of sweat. anyway, you knew. you had to.
i have to believe you did. otherwise, all there was is the blackberries, my fingernails
stained a sunken blue, your chin dripping hues. the sunflowers in the backyard
turning on instinct. aching for whatever warmth would have them.
stench of summer, playing in the streets, screaming at cars. touching, but
only enough. never enough. love like amoxicillin. love like violent pink.
love like a rancid stomach and the pot my mother kept for the sick. love like
you slept over at mine the night before church. love like your hand face up
on my knee in the pews. i wanted you because i wanted you. because it was
what i knew best to do. you taught me to tie cherry stems and keep secrets
the same month an acne scar bloomed under your left eye, brandiron red
where you just couldn’t stop picking. i wonder if anyone else has ever noticed
it, has dug the pad of their curious finger in, memorized its exact diameter.
where did we find the time to invent a new language for gentleness. learning
suture before we could ever dream of holding. confessional booths before
we knew just how much wrong we could do. razor burn budding down the side
of your throat, my lips chasing it. a whole future balancing right on the tip
of our tongues. you gave me your favorite pocketknife the last august morning
you left in the chevy pickup, kicking up a smokescreen of dust in your wake.
i never said it. not when your face was morning dew, not when i was busying
myself fretting over the rising marsh. not when the sun was golden egg cracking
against the horizon, or when i could still stand on the deck and watch you bleed
through the back of your t-shirt, dirge of sweat. anyway, you knew. you had to.
i have to believe you did. otherwise, all there was is the blackberries, my fingernails
stained a sunken blue, your chin dripping hues. the sunflowers in the backyard
turning on instinct. aching for whatever warmth would have them.
Lip Manegio is a poet, bookmaker, & dyke from New England. His work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Puerto del Sol, Gordon Square Review, Tin House, and been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. He serves as editor in chief at Ginger Bug Press & is the author of We’ve All Seen Helena (Game Over Books, 2019). Find them at lipmanegio.com.