You may think you’re Mystique – my favorite villainess in the X-Men comics – shape-shifting into anything. But she pulled off blue skin, red hair and a white dress without looking patriotic (not to mention the audacity of her accessories – yellow skull belt?). You are just a back-on-your-word bitch. Don’t think for a nanosecond that we’re a dynamic duo of “don’t give a damn.” I am a frustrated counselor and you’re a frustrated collector. You want people’s dirty secrets in your top drawer so you can pull them out and prove them wrong. I want people’s dirty secrets so they won’t feel dirty anymore.

* * *

You are being seduced by suicide, his arm around you, whispering in your ear. You admit all that’s holding you back is hellfear. But, like I told us, “it’s going to get good again.” I meant it. And later, listening to you laugh, remembering what it sounds like. And still later, looking at you under layers of afghans, just about to request a first hug as I nearly tackle you. There’s an other side, and we’ll get there.

* * *

It doesn’t matter to me if artificial insemination is grafitti on God’s train. it really doesn’t. I want to be a father, and I want you to be a mother, and if we did it with someone else, we’d just call each other with observations and questions, so we might as well save the phone bills and be married. Obviously, we each have our own semi-truck trailer of sexual issues, but you see double-trailer trucks on interstates all the time, right? Don’t say yes or no, just remember the time in my dad’s library with the door closed (you a Freshman, I a Junior, both of us with acne) when you asked, “Ben, what are we?