from My Eponymous Debut

I’m languaging, I’m affecting ordinary descriptions
of very real mountains. What, I ask here, do you have
to peak at? What do you have that we can lean to? I
don’t know much about hiking, but I’m liking things
left and right. When I think of being heroic, I think
of Teddy Roosevelt, his spectacles, and his grander
visions too. I won’t model myself after any man, but
Teddy Roosevelt makes such a good statue it’s hard
not to imagine yourself covered in bronze. My age
has little to do with this. My age is 36 and already I
am having a hard time memorializing everything I love.
Let’s invent a new way of speaking, I say, one where
our legs are just as important as our lips. One where
the only meaningful sounds are the sounds of your
skin unfolding away from my own. I’ve never been
any good as an actor, but you should see me reacting
to your hand coming to a rest on my chest. The word
score can be so many things and I mean them all now.
I want to have bled. I want to be orchestral. I want
these next twenty years to be filled with the lavenders
and lilacs filling this room right now. I want to show
you my fingers so we can better understand one, won
and wan. Today the sun is shining and it feels more
miraculous than it ever has. I mean, that my entire life
is based wholly on the reflected light of the sun seems
proof enough that a little wave here and there is all
we need to know that tomorrow is just around the bend.

from My Eponymous Debut

Let’s talk unspoken. Let’s talk unspeaking. You see, I am
bespoke, just say the word. Pas de Bourree, Pas-de-Calais,
pass me anything, really. Think of all the French ways we
can hold our hands together, of all the grace we can point to
with our fingers held just like this. My heart is sick and I need
you to fly, to stay in this position, to chart some new stars
even though nothing actually changes. We have lines to draw
lines to strike. This is a departure only in what I don’t mean.
I mean, the first one’s good, but then we’re here and now
I’m speaking in a new rhythm, one that’s punctuated, one
that’s wholly and grammatically correct. Go. Go. Go. Go.
Yes! When I run, I run though mud because someday, I want
a paleontologist to know that I had an impact on this world.
I want a name. I want a name that means something affecting
in Latin. Something that shows us all the ways my blood is
relayed to my finger tips. Something like Factum est Cor Meum
Rex. Sweetheart, let us pretend in each other’s potentials. Let us
see the whole and sweeping clouds of sunset as everything
that fills our bodies. But first, my arms, their emptiness is
unfortunate, but it’s an illusion, because my arms are filled
with freckles, with blood. When we speak of juicing the orange
I want us to mean this sunset, these freckles, this hackling we do
on the edge of every horizon. If there is any meaning in prophet
it is being filled with words that lead you only to an action. That
we contain anything is some kind of miracle. That we contain
blood is a miracle that even Jesus couldn’t keep to himself. Breathe
on me here so I can learn more about expectations, so that I can
know what it means to be moved somewhere other than tears.  

BJ Love lives in Houston, Texas. A simple Google search will reveal many graphic images, but “BJ Love poetry” will show you poems of his in H_NGM_N, Sink Review, Forklift, OH, Pinwheel Magazine, and Coconut. Additionally, he produces Pretty LIT, a podcast featuring literature and club jams. Find it here: www.prettylit.org.