he’s sitting on the couch & he’s white & cis & straight & ablebodied &&&&cetera
(you know how it is and oh how original so does he) and that’s why he turns to me
with all my labels hanging from my useless ears like a cow’s piercing signaling ownership (by who? not by this boy
necessarily, but by someone-something-not-me nonetheless
which turns me into the someone-something which this boy faces) & asks
what would you do if you were me?
& I blow out the cigarette smoke
& I look him in the eye
& I try to force the diameter of my pupils down
& I wipe a bit of dust of his jacket, its twin hanging in my closet a size too big
& I raise my eyebrows at the bottle that lies in the crook of his arm like a sleeping baby
& I say all this
& I mean it
but he does not speak sign language
& so he says
sorry
I get it
if you don’t want to answer the question
Simon Hauwaerts
