Amid evergreen song, Mother Earth’s voice blares enough
to conceal that of the boy—events that had long defined his hide
from his obscurities. Was it the painted nails
on masculine digits, the slight strut in his stride, or the two
personalities he wore that made faces turn to an uneven arc?
The same ones that upturn upon that bible verse: leviticus, sinful, a single color.
Of course, the lake he stares into is stripped of its hues. Its once glinting color
now stands dull with the rest of the onlookers: black and white, not enough.
And though the refracted image of the boy, in hindsight, is him, neither the arc
around his belt, nor his murky skin could hide
his real image. An image that strings together two
narratives into one, hardened by rainbow nails.
The boy remembers of when snout tubes, british cigs and coffin nails
meant as little as did an effeminate tone. He remembers the color
once found in his own voice before the world split him in two,
Rendered him the antagonist of his own story as if it had had enough
with his love, had forced him to hide
Removed from him a long-awaited hero’s arc.
After all, in their eyes, in their cultish arc,
he who sits cross-legged is to be met with nails
and crosses. And so he tries and tries to hide
his feminine taints, and to erase the bands of color,
hoping that it would be enough
for a normalized facade, but, ultimately, is left in two.
Yet he remains unhinged to either of the twos—
Separated from femininity by the extra skin arched
in between his legs, ungallant enough
for the ballsy other. He stays fixed onto the lake, nailed
on a vision of his past self. Body chalk full of color,
flowing free with no need to hide.
And in that park, through that lake, the hide
of past shadows, the uncertainty between twos
constrained the boy no more. He came out with the colors
that had never left, and learned that that arc
in which denies him the right of love, of comfortability, nails
together the hands of those who also struggle, which was enough.
No longer a need to hide,
No longer split into twos,
But found, with color.
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