Kayleb Rae Candrilli
There is a point at which I tire of my own fear
//
Start with a fence,
then peer into my chest.
A body has opened here,
so please travel over
god quickly. God
is a lake of blood.
The surface is often disturbed and built wholly of concentric circles.
//
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth’s empathy.
It just may kill us all.
A boy built on a hill can never be hidden.
I know this because I am one.
//
When I meet my partner, my partner meets me
back. Against the wall
we kiss and both note that today, what breaks us
is only the sun
through the blinds.
//
Queers are killed
and have always been killed in any number
of ways. But my partner tells me again and again
how they love me, and I know one day I’ll try to die
in their arms. I know this is how we will win.
//
My future husband and I make a blood pact to become
the fathers we always needed
Because we want our future
children alive
with the fire
of no abuse
we shake
each other
by the hand and by the body
in a contract that will last
as long as we are living.
We expel from our veins
the blood our fathers
put there—
but it is slow
going, to excavate
all these paternal lines.
In the meantime,
please show us one gentle
father, and perhaps we will believe
such a thing
exists, and that we can become so.
Our imaginary children already make us
do all sorts of things
that we feel proud of. See,
already, less blood,
so gentle.
On Attempting to Clear the Air
I am interested in my lungs
mainly because I have never seen them.
Their walls must be mud dark by now.
But finally, I regret every cruelty
I have ever done
onto myself.
This new way of loving
my body has made me
weak with pleasure. I am coming
into my own.
In America, the face of ecstasy
earns an R rating and it’s true,
my face is appropriate
for nothing.
You don’t even have to
look to know.