Porcelain Boy
This is not a story
of anguish and woe,
of a girl lamb and a lion boy.
This is the story of the night,
the swollen moon
holding its breath, watching us.
He is a lion,
with battle scars on his cheeks,
rippling across his body.
But, his round eyes,
the color of a bloated moon
shrink him down to a porcelain doll.
I told him I loved him.
Love, he repeated.
Love? he asked.
His body is rigid.
An icy coating of terror,
but it melts under my touch.
But I am a lion
with sharp teeth and razor claws.
My hands and mouth drip with blood.
No, I say,
because he is a butterfly’s wing,
a snowflake pressed up against my bedroom window.
And you are beautiful, he argues,
with your snow white wool
and emerald sea eyes.
I laugh,
and he laughs,
and he grows smaller and smaller under my gaze.
His hair is damp as morning dew.
His mouth tastes of grassy earth.
He is beautiful.
I love you, I say again.
He says nothing,
but opens wide his chest.
He hands me his heart.
It is porcelain,
white as the shell of an egg.
Before he leaves,
I put his heart in a cage
and tie it round my neck.
The moon exhales
at last,
laughing at my cleverness.
Photo by Andres Herrera
Christian Alexandria 