Paddy Qiu

Lipsticked Boys*

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2023: VOL. 38.

We are running from a beast*, a hound slobbering upon the glass, void of restraint.
It: canines clamped; a black hole punched into the glimmer of uptown asphalt.
Us, boys*: four legged running up my mother’s staircase, concaved for shelter.

We do not know what it means to keep secrets yet, clutching the basin,
trekking upon the bathroom sink like corpses upon a
mock Everest.

I wanna kiss his reflection in the mirror, with his chubby cheeked grin, his black holed incisor,
my stubby hands reaching for the lipstick once the door slams shut.

Ravenous, I brush the pigment upon our lips,
and we hush,
kiss the mirror,
reflections like
two ripples in a crimson pond.

Claw at their eyes,
pigments splattered. sprout talons,
the innocent gargle
of flesh.

Don’t know if it’s shame. or dignity.
or if either will matter in the end.

Only know: vigor unsated, boys* being.
gentle violence, gasping for
the other’s demise.

pre-man. pre-beast. black hole busts
from zipper. pre-ferred: pre-view of two
hounds splattered upon the glass.