by Patrick Mullen-Coyoy
[feat. The Magicians S3E5]
The worst thing about magic is the way it fails to fix you
in time. Ions shoot along axons like shards of potential,
memories distorted in the ricochet, until alcohol finally numbs
the hippocampal machinery to a dull whine. It’s morning,
but this body refuses to become mine. Cortisol transfigures
my guilt into anxious knots, my shoulders and lower back
rough as the endocarp of the peaches—or were they plums?—
you would buy us from the farmer’s market. You would get up
every Sunday, glide stubble over my cheek before I fell back
into the certainty you would return. In the sheets, I would map
out the negative space of your geography: the smirk of lips
on the pillowcase; the feet tangled beneath the comforter;
the hips pressed against mattress springs; all the weight
of a man daring me to give love one more chance.
Patrick Mullen-Coyoy is a queer, Guatemalan-Irish Capricorn hunkering down in Lansing, MI. When not stressing over getting students to college, they enjoy writing poems about the moon blowing up. His writing appears in The Acentos Review, Barrelhouse, HAD, and several group chats. Hit them up on Twitter @aguacatemalteco for more gay antics.