13

Wrong Boy

in chaos. peaceless
lamenting lost purity
eyes down.
virgin boy, clean like whiskers
licking hands
and washing
behind his ears

frail, spidery boy
all gawky with arms and legs
bolted on
wrong nuts, misshapen rivets
hashed. together, hacked
too many pieces
left. at the factory

I sometimes wonder
how it is that I
function. at all
circuits malfunctioning
packets dropped
and mixed. messages
from the motherboard

one day
I'll strip away the dirt
those layers of grease
and semolina pudding
scrape off
the semen and the blood
and discover

a handful of diamonds
a beautiful
wet deep saintly
open-mouth kiss
a sigh like death
a quietness...
well, you know me.

By Tobias Mayer

I live on the edge of beauty. I am patched together, like a civil war bedspread, like my teenager jeans in 1974, existing as pieces of other people, experiences I have lived, dream-like, threadbare and baffled. I am a nomad, traveling the globe and offering ideas and inspiration to down-trodden, disempowered software engineers and disillusioned middle managers. I write poetry occasionally. Sometimes it works out. Mostly I write prose as I am a seeker of perfect grammar and a lover of elegant sentence structure. Words keep me warm.