Every photograph he’s in makes the people who see it, slightly nervous. I call it the Latent Sexuality Problem.

He is who he is. And all the photographs of him project what people want to see. Versus seeing him.

Him.

He is foolish, howling, filled with laughter, but not when his boyfriend has pushed him away.

“It’s all my fault,” I am told.

“Probably.”

“You’re always on his side.”

Shrugs.

They meet, they quarrel, they are glued together, they become unglued, undone, break apart, cry, slam doors, listen to the same song fifty times, sulk, and dream.

He has weights in his room but he does not use them.

All of this has nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with desire.

The crickets have come back beneath the floorboards.

He slides along the walls. He is both a person and the long black sky. 

He has never been an object. What you see projected is desire. It is your desire. Own it.

In reality (down here on earth), I see a kid that I have been bugging for a year to eat breakfast.

Desire is complicated. Way too complicated for this kid to do the adding up.

Breakfast is cereal.

Breakfast is basic.

The actual kid is pretty basic, too.

He wants a Porsche. I would like a Porsche, myself. But my chances of getting one today are not good.

Thing is, I’ve had a Porsche. I drove it all around Mexico. It was the road trip of ten lifetimes. He wants to hear the story of it.

I will tell him about Mexico tomorrow.

Right now, I think I will fetch him some cereal so he might eat it on the couch.