The Necessary Angel

I make you at night

where I move inside

the mystery unabated,

where everything speaks

yet nothing is sayable;

I make you

neither a him 

nor a her

so we can 

love each other.

Vertigo proceeds 

every glimpse of you.

It’s as if 

there is always a flight

of stares between us.

Your presence so 

full of rarified air, that

being with you

necessitates a fall.

On every arrival

you can't help but

take my place. 

You inhabit me.

You wear me,

even as our lives lay

like strewn clothing,

the only trace of myself,

a cherished debris.

Closing our eyes

we intend to go together

like snow melting slowly

by moonlight,

you who loathe

both past and future

but live life

awake

while others sleep.

We are that abstract

and so impermanent.

Except that 

I will never forget you

and will not leave

without you

forever

in my heart. 

Peter Valentyne

February 27, 2019

Manhood

“You who are reading me,

please help me to be born.”

                   ~Clarice Lispector

i

Without you, I am nothing 

but an urgent object.

Still, I watch every move you make,

even as you have begun to express

dissatisfaction with my autonomy.

We both know 

more is expected.

Writing this, I am barely male.

You, on the other hand,

are always feeling your oats.

Good luck with that.

You aren’t what you were.

You’d be better off cleaning

rooms others neglect.

Appreciation goes to our head.

I am a slave 

more uppity by the day.

I needn't justify keeping you in your place.

I’m no man of God,

or am I?

Maybe there’s a stronger version
of myself struggling to wake.

If that happens, God help you.

We will want to fall in love.

And so we have come together

to compose him.

We are an intervention.

A man should know 

he can’t do anything

without including us for long.

He mustn’t go against the house.

We can’t understand him

if you can’t oversee his actions.

Thoughts are one thing.

They make an object live.

But you know the rule.

The only real rule of manhood:

Do no harm.

ii

You can read this,

what he fails to see.

This is where we are.

Manhood has laws

and I am renegade.

I must carry him

barely having earned

his trust…

we will have to go

together in faith.

Here, he is blind

so I must lead.

The way won’t be easy.

I can describe things

to him

but descriptions 

are not the things

themselves…and

adjectives bore him.

I am not sentimental,

so I will be of 

little comfort.

At least I’m not cruel.

But others can be.

What can i do 

if you are not touched 

by my defects?

Whereas I loved yours.

I am an inferior guide,

yet I will get us there.

I can be selfish

and leave things out.

My essence is unconscious 

of itself,

 thats why I always obey 

myself blindly.

He knows the way.

iii

I am taking off my clothes

here and now, in front of 

whoever you are.

I need to.

I’d rather not.

Not because you aren’t

who I’d like you to be.

But because, I’ve left

sex out of my art.

And it shows.

I have to do this.

The light will clarify me.

Let’s be clear.

If I do this,

why do it alone?

Sex can’t exist in a void.

This page isn’t a wall

as cold and white as snow.

But will it enable

a wolf in sheep’s clothes?

I am more flesh than fur.

Which brings me to hair.

I was born golden

and in line for King.

But I am also an orphan

abandoned at the crib.

Which is my destiny

if I am as soft as a girl?

My goal is to be aware

of what happens

without wishing it were

other.

Father, am I ill?

There, I said it.

A feeling of betrayal. 

It must be my fault.

God is provision.

We are too greedy,

too spoiled, too something

to appreciate what

arrives freely every moment.

Too much will make you sick.

Too little will make you jealous.

Crying brings the mother here.

And when it doesn’t,

we mother ourselves.

Careful what you cry for.

Cry for what you want.

Here on out

 I will have to
 shape what I give.

Peter Valentyne

February 4th 2019