My count is four

How many people have you slept with

that have died?

My count is four

So far

Joey

Dan

John

And Leon

I wonder how many more before it's my turn

I don't remember how Joey died

I think a heart attack

Young

We met a few times

but didn't do much

Oral and a hand and a talk

and a good-bye

two times

And few emails before and after

and in between

and pictures sent

He cleaned up real good

About the same age as me

I liked him

But I don't think we were in the same line of time

to really try to make it work

John was either a heart attack or stroke

Not young

but only in his fifties or sixties

He's the first one I had something ongoing with

I was in my twenties

He was in his forties

or so

I've always liked the older ones

Our positions were never written in stone

though I was mostly the top

I do remember riding him once

I was on deck

and his mast was full and inside

He lit the fuse

I fired over his bow with my oars still at my sides

and he's the only one to have ever made that happen

I think it surprised us both

Though not many have had the opportunity

to try make it happen since

I loved the feeling of him fucking me

Happened no where nearly enough

Leon

He wasn't young

I don't remember how he died

But it wasn't a bad time for him to go

We sucked and I fucked

and I blew him in the bedroom of another friend one time

while we watched something on one TV

and our friend was watching on another

waiting for food to be delivered or finish cooking

I have no idea anymore

My mouth was already full

Not many years before

they were my first three way

But I liked them better one on one

and I think they did too

He couldn't get it hard

Not all the way

It would have been a canon if he had

I enjoyed unloading it all the same

Dan died from

I think pneumonia

Made worse by HIV

I could be wrong about the pneumonia part

We only met the once

Just a little while before I moved to Maine

But sent emails for over a month before

I don't think he wanted me to go

But the bond was putty

not glue

and I needed to pull it apart

He was a DJ

and dabbled in photography

One of the last things he posted was a picture of a flower

he called it a dead sun

and captioned "A long dead Sunflower still casts some beauty."

I wonder what would have happened had I stayed

I tend to wonder that a lot

About a host of people and places

And so many things

I had a roommate once

I never knew how bad the things were that he did

until really about a month before I had the money and the means

to move

I didn't know why he had to go to the police department

after we moved in

and it never occurred to me to ask

Autism oddly stops you from considering things like that

way too many times

The observational investigations coordinator

the title of the one inside my head

who actually does know better

still wonders what would have happened if I had been out

touched him

blown him

if I'd fucked him while we were there

Would he have gone after someone else after I moved?

I'm not fool enough to think that's a no

If he's still in jail they can let him rot into the bars

MOGI made him brittle

and he's probably had every bone broken by his cellmate fucks by now

I saw him naked many times

but only accidentally copped a feel

Helping him into the bath a time or two

Even never innocent

and not really deceased

the dead still like leaving questions

Don't they?

Questions in my head

That I'll never answer to my satisfaction

regardless of what happened while they were still around

I miss John and Leon

and Dan

I didn't know Joey much more than his body

not as much as I'd wished to know

Everyone leaves something behind

Painted rooms

worn and weathered and never fully washed away

whether I want it to be or not

I partly hope John meets me

when it's time for me to fade away

and fucks me again

It could feel so welcoming sometimes

like coming home

To someone without one to come home to at all

I'm not helping with his cucumber bread again

Though

It was going to be zucchini

if mistakes weren't made before I arrived

No one ever knew

We celebrated in his bed

** This is from a collection of poems I have been writing throughout the month of May, 2025, and may not reflect the day in May that it was written on.