For My Boy. More so, Hopeless Limerence

Kaiman Smith

Infernal, pyretic, sodium-vapor street light hissing– the wings of cold air  

flutter across campus. 

Clandestine, candid in the dusk hour, sweaty backs flattened against berber carpet. 

Alabaster white dorm walls, now yellowed, a veil against the  

warbling of the cold. 

Neither of us initiated it, at least it wasn’t me; maybe I’m misremembering. Hands clasped in 

tacit understanding, arms contorted awkwardly– stifled voices flitter into chuckles. 

Has anyone –and by anyone, I mean someone kind, worthwhile, someone like you–  

ever told you just how beautiful you 

look? Your nose, your recently-shaved stubble, your little smirk, 

prepossessing in the feverish haze of the street light seeping in from your dorm window. 

Beneath the obvious answer, why’d you let me stay over that night? 

Underneath our innocent conversation– teasing punches  

thrown as covert messages; I don’t think that you got that. I doubt it. I hope that you did. 

Languid voice answers my questions– my strained attempts to 

understand you in your entirety. Open mouth rambles on; half-lidded eyes  

stare into mine. You make me into a quivering bird. 

Vigorous, internal denial: you –I– can’t be perfect –for you, your woman, a woman. 

Even if I was, who’s to say that you’d reciprocate?  

You don’t understand what I’d do if things happened exactly as I  

wanted them to. Our lives intertwined– Sitting across from me, feigning anger because of my 

indecisiveness, unable to decide on what I wanted 

 to eat. It’d be different: you’d understand me. 

Thinking back to that first day; we were 

 sat almost directly across from each other, but not quite; 
you –no, I– should’ve known that whatever’s up there wouldn’t  

chirp out my –our– truth so blatantly. 

Just imagining you reading this helpless confession is making me feel nauseous: 

having built up this elaborate illusion for myself, how could you not 

unravel it? Besides, I’m not sure you would’ve made it this far, anyways. 

Labored, shallow breaths, unsteady, restless sleep– cold air  

billowed through the aged window. Oasis found in your touch. Sweaty palms released, lacking 

the conscious understanding to stop myself. 

I should’ve –would’ve– slid my hand back into yours. I didn’t. I wish you were awake then to 

savor that closet intimacy– to feel the fluttering in my hissing heart; you wouldn’t have.