And They Lived . . .

by Steven Salvatore

To every queer person who grew up never seeing themselves in fairy tales but still dreamed of being swept off their feet in a Technicolor love story: this is for you, go find your adventure

Taylor whispers, “Go find your adventure.” Adventure is our code name for love. Because I’m that desperate that we had to find a way to talk about my love life all the time without me seeming like an obsessive mess. It might be super weak and cliché and cheesy, but all I want is to fall in love. Have an adventure. But I’m me, which means I’ll probably graduate a loveless virgin.

“The one thing that I’ve learned is that there are no rules, only the ones you impose upon yourself. If you feel comfortable, that’s all that matters.”

“There are no rules, Gray. And there’s no pressure to be anything other than exactly who you are at any given moment.”

And they lived.

“Because the point isn’t that they were happy forever but that they lived. They took a chance and lived.”

My tale is done, there runs a mouse; whosoever catches it may make himself a big fur cap out of it.

LICHTENBERG FIGURES, YOU Trees shed leaves the way I shed faces, collectively holding our breaths until we can flower once harsher weather ebbs. The last leaf clings to its limb, to seasons gone, the way I cling to a mask that no longer fits. Maybe it never did. Naked trunks sprout from scorched earth branches feather out like jagged bolts of lightning waiting for the rain to learn how to breathe again.

you dance on my tongue all notes and chants and heavenly praise our bodies pressed together in prayer i see capital g god when i sit at your altar and take in the body of christ father son and holy ghost screaming names in vain and asking for-giveness of my sins to stay on your lips like a hymn

“This binch writes you poetry and whispers rogue ‘I love yous’ as he makes you cum with those strong hands. You’re living a gay fairy tale. Who cares if he has demons? We all do. We’re gay.”

“Sweetie, if you can’t talk to me about sex after you saw me fully splayed out like a Thanksgiving turkey getting stuffed, how are you going to have it?”

“Everyone always says it is lucky to be struck by lightning. Nobody ever tells you how to live once you’ve been struck. All I know is that it is impossible to harness.”

Grabbing hold of him, feeling every hard inch of him between my lips, I am both spectator and subject, artist and patron, worshipping at the altar of the divine.

Using his best feminine porn star voice, he coos, “I’m a nutcracker, daddy. Do you want your nuts cracked?”

The wind carries seeds like your name on my breath So why is there ground where flowers never grow? Why do some things never settle and root like trees? Then I realized what my garden lacked You I’m in bloom

You remind me of red cardinals and majesties unknown faraway lands and magic spells, words I’ve yet to learn that haven’t been invented because with you I’m an unwritten novel reborn in your margins under night skies, and rainy-day puddles. we exist in the breath between lightning and thunder where the end is a beginning, that starts with three simple words a poem by your name that goes I love you I love you I love you

It’s funny how so many of us struggle with the same stuff: feeling like we’re not enough. Not good enough to be loved. Not beautiful enough to be worthy. Not talented enough to be accomplished. Not significant enough to feel important or seen. Without the proper words to tell another that we love them, that we hate them, that we something-in-between them, that they hurt us when they think they love us.

Fairy tales are nice because they paint a rosy picture of love: Meet, sing a cute song, and bam! Marriage. But that’s not love. That’s fantasy. This? Facing the hard, gritty shit together, realizing you can survive the trials on your own, yet don’t need to because someone is willing to hold your hand as you grow? That, I think, is real love.

Once upon a time, Jack and I were two people who were sort of lost when we met, found ways to love ourselves, and then each other. And then lived.

we exist in the breath between lightning and thunder where the end is a beginning that starts with three simple words a poem by your name that goes I love you I love you I love you