Two Poems | Izraq Jesen – Isele Magazine

i collect every name my mother has called me

practice saying them in my mother’s bathroom naked
put them on like prayer beads / ruby or jade / mother of pearl

she calls me fruit / of labour / labours of a mother / she calls me
lotus / of love / flowers of worship / and even poison smells sweet from a flower’s bosom / so i taste myself for death before i let her kiss me
mother / calls me mahal of her heart and i fear / i might crush her

some days i try / to make myself / smaller / bite-sized and more palatable / easy to consume

but my mother calls me mother and i am afraid / i may never get used to it

she calls me rivers / kaveri / mahananda / what gives life and takes in equal measures / so like a river i flow / into my mother’s mouth / sink into her like a reptile craving heat

some days i think i may be easy to love
but my mother calls me moon / and i become the tide / my mother calls me fruit / and i become hunger

my mother calls me mother and i am / afraid / of how violently i bloom / into a field of blood / red lotus

my mother calls me mother and i am still not used to my mother’s love
this pain of bloom / let me get used to it

Love: Infrared

take the fruit of love and core it / take the knife to its wet heat / and make a cathedral out of it / season it with shame and plop it into your lover's lush mouth / pleasure served as prosperous offering / amen

take the fruit of love / and core it / maybe god / haunts the paddy field where we kiss / maybe god / haunts the skies underneath which / your lips ignite / the birth of a binary system between our mouths

there is something about this kind of love / that makes you the antagonist of your own story / gunshots from the TV ring loud while I make love to her / i say love but she hates it / says she wants a bloody scene / make it dirty / make it hurt / make it last / her moans bleed into my moans while the man on the screen bleeds to death / another gunshot to an already dead body / such is love / such is love / after sex we scan the local soap operas for one gay character / of course there is none / of course / forget it / "homosexuality is a bourgeois illness" / well fuck 'em / "group of twenty men hunted and fatally wounded for suspected homosexual behaviour" / turn off the news babe / we're making out over our graves / make a wish / make it last / let's just kiss while we can / she says she wants a crime scene / and i wonder how i can make this queer love holy for the masses / i don't believe there is a place for me in heaven but she holds me down and / good god / this is heaven / in her arms or between her legs / in vain i take god's name when we fuck / in vain i kneel for god after kneeling for her / hymns die in my mouth when i swallow down her pleasure / some days i beg forgiveness for a sin i don't understand / other days / my lover tells me i love a god that doesn’t love me back / i know i know / such is love / she says she wants a double-suicide and i know / we are destined to die for love / it’s not as poetic as it sounds / there are bullets with our names on them and maybe it is a little poetic / forget it / someday we will swallow the light and wake up holy / someday we will walk through the massacred fields singing / open your mouth / we’ve come a long way to find love and let it core us / open your mouth / love / please open your mouth / and kiss me already