BOYS DON’T CRY — David Potters

The bed I grew up sleeping in is barely big enough to fit my thoughts
let alone two people
and while I'm still adjusting to sleeping alone
I've really only ever been alone here.

So my body returns to a moment in time
the way bodies know to do
when I was clumsy and unsure of myself
staying up until the sun came up
giving anything for a bed in any borough big enough
to contain the dreams that spilled out the top of my head when I lay down to sleep.

Having someone like you to dream beside
you
whose dreams I could maybe write for but would prolly never appear in
is something my teenage body couldn’t even fathom.

But I’m grown now.

It just doesn’t feel like it when I’m back in the cul-de-sac
screaming into the phone at my ex-girl
sounding like Mario
sounding like how-could-you-how-could-you-just-forget-about-me
except I don’t sound like Mario
I sound like a fucking lunatic
and my dad yells from the front porch
telling me come inside
the whole god damn block can hear me
but “here kitty kitty” doesn't work on young Simba
I'll come when I'm ready
and fuck these neighbors what do they know about me
looking down at me from their second floor windows
and I can't even look up
with this crown lying so heavy on my head
they’re calling me inside for supper
but I got enough on my plate
most young kings get their heads cut off
and I’m not ready to die.

I came home to lick my wounds after she left
and I got sick
but my house is not a home anymore
not when they got me sleeping in this fucking
mausoleum
that used to be my bedroom.
I wanna make fun of whoever put this room together
with this Porsche poster even though I pushed a Honda
and this Bob Dylan poster even though I listened to Omarion
but my heart breaks for that kid from half a lifetime ago
trying to construct a persona from TV shows and hand-me-downs
cause he wasn't strong like me
he didn't know how to show love how to receive it
how to talk to a girl
other than to occasionally slip
“I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours”
over AOL Instant Messenger
to a girl from the neighborhood
who didn't know it was a Dylan line
and why should she
we were just kids
how were we supposed to know anything?

I got my own lines now but everything else is the same.

I still have all my old Calvin and Hobbes cartoons under my bedside table
where they’ve sat for twenty years.
We could crack one open and thumb through the pages
until the nostalgia hits like edibles
knocking us flat on our backs
where we can look up at the stars
you remember how they did in that famous strip?
I don't have a skylight or anything but
we could probably get a pack of those 90’s glow-in-the-dark stars
and tack em up on the ceiling.
We can see the real stars from my bed
I might mention
but you wouldn’t fall for all that.
I know my childhood twin mattress isn’t really your style
and it's not mine either
bet
but maybe for a second
we can pretend we never grew up
maybe there
looking out into infinity
it’s like it never even happened
and we can forget about how bad it's going to hurt.

See I could shake the earth off its axis with this pain that I got
but with you
I want to spin it backwards
rewind time
start from scratch
I want to show you where it hurts
here
and here
and there
and I want you to walk your fingers over my skin and say
I’m here now
whoever did that can’t find you here
baby you’re with me
and then I want you to take my hands
smooth your thumbs across my palms and say
I’m here now
whatever trouble you made with these hands
that’s out there
you’re in here
stay with me.
I want to cry
but I don’t
because a king wouldn’t
nah
I want to walk tall for you
throw my shoulders back
beat my chest
but what’s a king to a goddess anyway?

Let my walls fall away
let the roof lift off
fly me to the moon like Frankie
second star to the left and straight on til morning
except you’re not Tinkerbell
fuck that
you’re Wonder Woman
because in your arms there is no Neverland
there is only here
wherever it is that you take me
and all I can do is hold on
until we’re back in my bed again
safe and sound under the covers
dreaming about the boy I never stopped being and the girl who saved him
but until then?

I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.