BOYFRIEND TAX
another red slip drifts to the floor, with the rock and the wave of an autumn leaf on a windy day, and my antsy feet shuffle left, shuffle right, fresh paper cuts kissing callouses under pointed toes.
i look up at your shape, my great oak tree, count the wrinkles in your face, and shrink from the barren branches. it’s hard to recall yesterday, when leaves were as bright as i am dim, waved to me, housing chrp chrp life, whilst reaching to infinity.
another red slip, this one hits me right on the head, “boyfriend tax,” it reads, “the dividend of my affections”
these affections are as juicy as a fresh plucked apple, each bite dribbles sticky mush into my chin’s crevice, or as nourishing as O, i breathe in your photosynthesis like a shotgun kiss.
and yet — each new slip skews the scale some more.
“winter is coming,” i shout, “winter is coming and i don’t know if you’ll bloom again”
scarlet leaves burn flames in my retina.
what if you had feet that bled footprints wherever it went, from all the paper cuts? and what if i had roots? roots that went and went, would i pay your tax?
would you pay mine?