Bangkok Stories, Part 2: Measures of Love

Bangkok, ผมรักคุณ

When my motorbike driver made the turn
my body was only inches
from the brown pavement I travel on everyday,
it was so close, and fast,
that the masonry looked
too smooth, too refined.
Somehow I felt
it just shouldn't be that way, it was
like how rocks become polished by moving
sands on the beach—

my love life;

if only there were
no secrets, no scars.



Hypothetical

As our footsteps echoed through
the wet streets of the sleeping market
I wondered why we always meet
in this kind of scenery—dark, surreptitious,
but romantic;

you don’t forget these things,
first impressions, his speech
effortlessly assonant and
never a silent consonant—
they all belong to him
even after you realize
it’s not just him,
the rest of Europe speaks the same way.

These impressions, they become just as real
as the hazel of his eyes or
the musical inclination of his stare;

one year ago
our gazes connected through the rhythmically beating
air-conditioned space, yet
I still don’t know if I was just
paying too much attention to his creaseless white shirt
or the way he says “fantastic”
not as an adjective
but a nominal metaphor of us:

the staring bronze Buddha, and the papier-mâché pig,
artwork scattered on the floor of his apartment
like a gallery exhibition that’s gone on for too long.



Colors, Body, Parts

I.
Golden hair,
violet-reds and blond gives it
that warm autumnal glow, you,
the naturally occurring
biological complement.

II.
Bisexual eyes
verbose green and quiet brown;
I can't help the blush you cast
on my body, confused
by this twofold arousal.

III.
Powder white skin
freckled, almost to say
the pale in you is fighting to harmonize,
as I am submissive, blending in,
to your body, colors.



Cigarette Smoke and Songs

Every time I look
the strokes of browns he made on the white
of your neck
just above the collarbone speak to me
of Van Gogh and his
Starry Night, how hard
he had to fight with his canvas
to lure the psycho-passions
in the calm blues, greens;

I want to fight with your canvas—I want
to learn how to draw those
reluctant cedar reds, I want
my lips chapped and lost in your
five o'clock shadow so nobody could see
the pain and my thirst instinctual;
artistic martyrdom, how
you do that to me. No matter
how deep, how dark it grows;
my lust will only be a stained mistake
unexplored on that tender vacancy
of your neck. No matter
how much of myself, my saliva,
my scents
I try to leave, or should I say,
belong on you, until
the next morning.

I will never get it,
how he excites the quiet, insensitive
darks of midnight—
your cigarette smoke,
and songs.



Measure of Love

I found a piece of your hair
on my bathroom floor, I knew
it was yours because it was brown,
soft, and slightly curly, unlike
the harsh black of my own. I picked it up,
looked at it for a moment,
and tossed it in the bin; I do not
need to be reminded of how
my fingers noticed your hair getting longer
every time I stroked you head
thinking that love
is something
I could forever measure.