A Boy in a Bed

A boy lays in bed
And you could be here

Two times the glass
Breaks up the light
But only by half
And you could be here

You're in a picture
On a half-open laptop
Half-smiling
Half-mad
At something I bet happened
Right before the picture did

The boy in the bed wants to climb in that photo
And pull you out of it
Or let you know that it can be
Eight years in the past
And you could be here

A question goes by
Like a light going out

A crack, a splinter
A loss of luck

Somebody's lonely who'd rather not be
And you?

You could be here

And what kind of guy could get you here?

Shorts and beer
Long dark hair
European sensibility
Academic leanings with a beard
Educational rejection with a goatee
Acoustic guitars
Grand pianos
Chest hair
No hair
Sunglasses
Sepia photos
Unexplained bruises
Damaged yearbooks
Filthy kitchens
Cats named Steve

Tell me
What could get you in this bed?

And not a bed for wasting time
Although, admittedly, your legs
Are a desert, and I am T.E. Lawrence
Your legs are a journey
They're dangerous
I could die on them and die happy
I feel like going up them and coming down them
Would change the color of my eyes
The general make-up of my hands
I feel like I'd have a Stendhal reaction
And from that point on
All my art would be points and lines
Nothing connecting to anything else

Your lips terrify me
Certain sections of your arms
The parts of you that appear temporarily
On a photo taken on a summer day
When you were only willing to give the people looking at you
Half a smile and nothing more
All of that is there
And those legs
And the thought of all that
In a bed
With a boy
Seems impossible

If all that was meant to occur
Was an hour of running around
Underneath dark white sheets
Then where would we even begin?

Better to think we'd just lie there
And I could map you out
Imagine that I'm centimeters tall
And you're the giant
You are in my mind

No talking, no sharing of banal histories
Personal regrets, lost decisions
This year and that year
There's no room
There's just no room
For anything
But you and me and silence

A boy lies in a bed by himself
And a car starts outside
And a washer finishes a cycle
And birds go from one tree to another
And a bus picks up a passenger
And a kid jumps into a pool
And a jackhammer hits a road
And physical noises invade
The surreal idea that I can see your outline
Color-by-number shapes
And soft indentations
Create a shape next to me
And you could fill that out
And you could arrive
And you could be here
And a boy in a bed
Could want to stay there
And not feel guilty
And listless
And lifeless
And worried
That he doesn't want to get out of bed
Even though he has absolutely no fucking reason
To stay there

You could give me a reason
To stay in this bed
Just by the virtue
Of having you in it with me