His mouth
is the place
I look
after I look
at his eyes. His mouth
shapes words; winks; lies
and admits. His mouth
shields teeth: a pair
of white ivory piano
boards, the top treble
and the bottom bass
cause a voice
of harmony; of angels
and devils; of promises
and lies; of laughter
and agony.
His mouth
is the harbor
for his tongue; laying
softly in the shell
it waits for my lips
to open the compact,
to slowly knock
on his wet lips
teasing them apart and
waiting for the incumbent
to answer my curiosity.
His mouth
is what I look at
when I can no longer
watch the truth
in his eyes.
Category: First Love
Loving Men-Rodrigo (Throat)
His throat is long
like an egret’s, elegant
as a bride’s dress,
and sits squarely
atop his torso
like a pillar
candle.
His throat meets
his strong jaw, a pair
of triangles
that flair afar
from his pointed
chin which mirrors
the length of his nose.
His throat is lithe
and sinewy and
soft even though
its core is strands
of muscle like garland
wrapped around the Christmas
tree of discs and cartilage.
His throat is a target
for the sky jumper of kisses
which land atop the softness
of his skin.
My kisses, like planted bulbs
drawn down to the pools
of his clavicle.
His throat is my envy.
Loving Men-Aliases
Who among us have never longed to be someone else.
I’m often asked, “Are all the men you write about real or fantasy?”
They are all real. Each and everyone.
It’s their names which are fantasy.
They’re all aliases. Each and every one including Otter, Pup, D., Luciano, Jean-Baptiste, Sao Paulo, Isaiah, Corey, Calhoun, Mark, Michael IV, Micheal VII, Jeffrey, and yes, Rodrigo.
I write about how they’ve moved me, how they’ve touched me; I’ve written
about what they’ve said and how they shared it with me; I’ve described flanks, and torso’s, and buttocks, and faces, and waffling and pancaking (Rodrigo and I waffle).
I’ve learned that keeping my life secret was difficult for me, since I 
write a blog on the internet. But keeping the identity of lovers sacrosanct was something I hadn’t bothered to worry about. Who wouldn’t want to read about themselves on the internet?
All of them didn’t.
They understood and continue to understand that as a writer I will write about what inspires me, and what inspires me are them, the lovers in my life. But what they didn’t wish to share was themselves.
You see, how I see them and how the world would see them are different.
I write about them in ways that I see them; through my eyes; not through theirs. I point out things and feelings and places that they might never see.
An alias is more than a name.
An alias can be about an entire experience.
Loving Men-Distinction
The process of loving men are distinctions.
The evolving relationship by which Rodrigo now find ourselves has finally coalesced into distinctions: Curiosity, attraction, passion, and intimacy.
Our curiosity began on a dating app. Rodrigo was interested in my writing, so I sent him a link to my blog. Rather than reading it from the end, Rodrigo began reading it from the beginning. He wrote, “I think I’ve gotten to know you by reading what you’ve written. You’re a very talented writer and passionate man.”
Our attraction was launched over a Friday night dinner at Sea Level, an oyster bar/seafood restaurant in Charlotte. We sat at the bar and enjoyed dinner. Rodrigo is an agile 5’7″ tall, and a lean 140 pounds. But what attracted me to him were his eyes: almond-shaped and pupils surrounded by milk chocolate. His bright smile spread across his face when we laughed. And we laughed a lot. He often said that he was attracted to my laughing and smiling which highlighted my high cheekbones and strong jaw; but it was my eyes, blue, which also smiled when I smiled.
Our passion was ignited by the first kiss, in my car after dinner. It was a simple closed
mouth kiss, lacking any compromise. But the more frequent the dates, the more frequent the kisses. We have now kissed millions of times and it’s hard to believe that any of them were similar in any way. The flames of our passion were fueled by obstacles: buttons, snaps, zippers, shoulders, denim, and buckles.
Our intimacy is now the ease and comfort of understanding each others’ body. There’s still the passion, the obstacles; we still have attraction; our curiosity is seen by our wandering hands and lips.
There are distinct distinctions of loving men. The joy is in their discovery and the discovery of them together.
Loving Men-Escalation
When you hit black ice, even in relationships, don’t slam on the breaks, but be patient, and steer yourself into the skid thus facing it.
Escalation: To increase in attitude, magnitude, etc.
A lot of life escalates: Arguments, car wrecks, Love, love-making, sex, etc. Not all escalation is bad however.
Last night Rodrigo and I escalated. We went further than we’d ever gone before. We hit that black ice and steered towards each other, feeling a definite sense of panic, but also a sense of relief to simply let go, and careen, silently, except for moans, towards an inevitable end. Not a crash, but more of an intersection. Last night we escalated.
When you’re driving down the familiar back country road of your bedroom, the only light coming through the tree-like slats of your window, a midnight moon silvered by
trees, you know the road like the back of your hand, and then it happens, the skid, the loss of control, the giving up to happenstance, the thoughts of demolition, of crashing, flailing into an abutment, or rail, or, like Rodrigo and I, into each other.
But the crash into Rodrigo isn’t a single crash. No, it’s a repetitive 
crash. Like cymbals in a marching band or drums in a drum line. It’s a repetitive crash like an automatic weapon, which, when it ends, makes you sweat, exhausted, and, frankly, happy to be alive.
An escalation doesn’t always have to be negative. An escalating skid on black ice covering familiar roads will end in a collision. Hopefully, just like Rodrigo and I.
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 