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We stay in bed all day.
The pen stands up & writes the poem
without me.
Your fingers graze my back.
I pull your body over me
like a roof, mistake
your drumming heart
for rain.
From In the Middle of a Better World by Grant Chemidlin (Central Avenue Publishing, 2026). Copyright © 2026 Grant Chemidlin. Used with the permission of the publisher.
While I ate my oatmeal, I saw Hope on the milk carton.
What’s missing: hope, the milk carton.
I tried to write hope into a poem, but couldn’t.
The words scattered like iron filings anytime my hands
came near them. Everything has its own magnetic field of sadness.
For most of my life I was a liar, yes,
because I had to be, but I,
for most of my life, was still
a liar, lied even
to myself. For a while, I hated me.
Back then I hated
the secret me, hated me
secretly,
only to now look back & hate the me
Boys do not kiss boys. They catch frogs.
Is what I told myself the second it happened.
& there we were, hidden in the hemlocks of a secret swamp.
Your lips drifting away from mine like a silent ship