-poetry
Spaceboy kindles starlight in his palms
And in his words, a song beats on
Song like an intergalactic ocean
But Spaceboy lives too damn far
& occasionally sweeps in like a lark
& unsettles my once-unbothered orbit —
Eyes sweet & smooth as cherry sorbet
And Spaceboy shoots sunshine from his eyes
And he always gets it good, but never right
And with his hair ablaze, he’s got a way
Of making you always wanting to stay —
Of na-na-naing his way through a night
Of making your heart almost break
when he says goodbye
And I tell Spaceboy what he means to me
(how I see stars when I see his eyes,
How I see home when I see his thighs)
And his twinkling smile bewilders me
And as he ushers me through his galaxies
Little does he know, he is all I seek.
I found this poem in my archives recently and it felt really weird to read it. After all this time, when I look back on the relationship I was writing about in this poem, all I can remember is hurt and heartache – but I’d completely forgotten about this, all the peace and the love and amazement that it all started out with.
Because of how badly it ended, even all the happy memories had, in my mind, been clouded with this aura of hate and resentment. All the beauty had faded, and the memories had mutated into something that wasn’t completely real. And if I hadn’t found this poem, maybe I’d keep on thinking of the relationship with resentment and nothing more. So I’m really glad that I wrote this back then, because now all those good feelings have been distilled and preserved in ways that human memory can never guarantee.
Now, after reading this poem, when I look back on the six months I was with Spaceboy, I’ll remember more than just the bad parts. I can hate him, but I don’t have to hate all the moments: some of them were great, beautiful, transformative, and out-of-this-world good, which is how I started calling him Spaceboy in the first place – because of how otherworldly he seemed at times.
Just because it’s broken now, doesn’t mean we have to pretend it wasn’t beautiful before.
