by Blue Fay
[AUTOEROTICA] Blue came to me like Venus in reverse shirtless at dawn on the shoulder of the freeway I was fourteen-years-old my life was as long as a sonnet and Blue threatened me with it the car was totalled crushed into the shape of the clamshell Blue climbed out of a man with a body made up of drawers at night he coughed up ironing boards and potted plants Blue opened his chest like a medicine cabinet and fed pills to his reflection in the mirror Blue drained himself like a bathtub Blue wanted to write a poem so watery it ran down the side of a building begging to pose nude for me but looking at Blue without clothes on was like looking at myself: a chipped dinner plate the unoccupied space inside a shirt on a wire hanger
[MEDIEVAL BLUE MINNOW BLUE] You are having sex with another man named Blue and I am taking it incredibly well I haven’t thrown any tantrums or cocktails or wildly destructive parties that spill out of my building and onto social media where the other Blue has started following me rippling between stories sliding into my dms should I fuck my way through you and your boys he wants to know did you know Calvin Klein sells boxer briefs in two shades of blue MEDIEVAL BLUE and MINNOW BLUE the other Blue wears black Versace jockstraps he has brown curly hair and industry connections and you I used to watch you dig through your dirty clothes looking for clean underwear smelling each pair of Calvin’s life is all about choices me or him MEDIEVAL BLUE or MINNOW BLUE
[BLUET-ME-NOTS] I am not going to write you a love poem about the color blue but if I was it would go like this: Blue was too delicate for this world so I put his name in a jar and broke it Blue went boating in a white scalloped blouse and seduced a freshwater pearl tycoon everyday without Blue passed through me like a needle eighteen months of thread pulled into a single knot I embroidered the inside of my cheek with water snakes three-headed birds a fish fossilized inside another fish one night I stitched the dawn and when the sun rose on my embroidery hoop the sky went colorblind with shock
Blue Fay is a writer from Southern California. He has worked odd jobs in newsrooms, children’s hospitals, and most recently the prison system, teaching creative writing. His writing has appeared in The San Francisco Standard, the Berkeley Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 