‘boy christ’ for my younger brother In my mind's eye I was an only child until I flew home from overseas and witnessed the shimmering urgency of your joints’ liquid to splurge, fire out, and bloom. I noticed your acne, the pus-filled colony kissing your face the way it used to kiss mine. I wish I had prepared a map: here, brother, this ointment will take you to X. This route will take you to your mother's love. This is how to orbit Saturn. Deep down I am such a diva but here, brother - this is what I know of being a man. This is words on paper wrapped under a Christmas tree. This is how to peel an apple in one go, watching its skin fall down as a helix, longing for a twin. See how our dog sees us for equals? See how the beer starts a fire in your stomach's lining, how it opens the gate?

’sometimes of course I am hot’ I deliver these self-addressed messages with consistency of a mirror. It is day infinity of my cells wanting to be dead. I am hot shit, but to be with an open mouth at this party is to think of all the other bodies as he’s tongueing me down. Bodies that with enough osmosis will hopefully replace the make-up of my own. I think of my grandmother who, the reigning queen of wedding rings in kneaded dough, has always made me aware of the beautiful mysteries of my form. I think of herself in me, the years of cigarettes, coffee, and the lack of sunscreen. How she would glimpse in the mirror and recognise completion. How she would braid the surface of an apple pie and sugar me with her blessing. I’ve been made of sugar ever since.

Sunday 23rd March, 2025 Split me open and cut my throat with your gospel of a thousand needles. Last Sunday I was witness to the Great Process in which light is given and taken, also: redistributed. On my knees, he swung his swollen dick and mock-drowned me in an ocean weaved out of a million of drops, also: a single drop made out of an ocean. I come from a small town that conditioned me not to kill spiders out of the fear of rain. In July drought, my grandmother would harvest final life out of wild strawberries and press them on my lips with a blessing of a beautiful future, somewhere far away. And so I kneel at the altar of infinity, the sting of tears hitting the corners of my eyes, mucus running down my nose, I am suffocated by God. I pray.