(c) Evelyn Deshane, 2015
the back breaking labour
of climbing up and down stairs
of sweating profusely during the dog days of summer
the one bedroom apartment, swelling up and over
a moving truck van. rent it now for $19.95 –
(plus services and fees).
nothing from no one is ever really free.
except for shared laughs about the things that I’ve kept
the moments remembered, smoking on steps
we go out to dinner and then grab a pint
but can’t fuck at night because we’re tired and sore.
we’re living together now. I worry it’s all boring,
so trivial and mundane. I don’t believe in soul mates
& we’ve never kissed in the rain, like a 90 minute romance movie.
what’s a happily ever after ending, when i’m still alive to see
the dark after the credits roll, and we’re stewing in our seats
wondering if our non-belief is enough to create something good?
even if we’ve both read what plato says about love
being nothing but a joke, i still hope that in this one bedroom
apartment (with way more stairs than before), we’ll share
the fights and the problems, the times we can’t keep it up
the flues and epidemics, the coughs and night sweats.
here’s something different, something else that I’ve learned
through duct tape and yearning on bathroom floors
hung over from longing, bore for bore:
I want the ordinary, like the keys in a lock
the name on a lease, a stray blue sock.
I’m doing laundry at midnight because the sweat has soaked us through
and this time, maybe,
a one bedroom apartment
can be made for two.
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Evelyn Deshane is a queer poet living in Canada. Their chapbook, Mythology, was released in 2015 by The Steel Chisel.
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GAY FLASH FICTION 