What Will It Be, Boss? The Comfort Of Misery Or The Pain Of Change?

what are you waiting for? someone to grant you permission? the perfect and permanent emotion? a shooting star to magic away every problem you have or ever have had? alright, wait away then. but no one is going to live your life for you while you wait to become someone else

Maple and Spruce    -    Linden Frederick , 2022,

American , b.1953 -

oil on linen, 16 x 16 in

Mark Doty, "The Death of Antinoüs"

hottest thing a guy can be is a simp. just. a loser. a spineless fool. a total wet wipe of a man.

It’s almost as if nobody wants to admit that they might not be prepared to do the work it takes to love somebody. And it can be laborious. To be intimate with someone who is flawed (which is the standard) requires us to expose our own flaws. We don’t talk about the heavy responsibility of that. We don’t talk about how we’re too lazy or too cowardly sometimes. We instead accuse love of being elusive. It isn’t. It is omnipresent. It asks us to be better people. And sometimes we flat out refuse.

"The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it."

poem by Mikko Harvey

Michael A Davenport, 3,090 Degrees Fahrenheit (Oil on canvas, 2025)

30in x 48in

But the thing I will never admit to anyone who's met me is how desperately I want to be loved, I don't think I could say it. How I want someone to hold my wrists and kiss my palms and smile at me, and want me, I want to be wanted and I don't know how long poetry or songs will substitute for being wanted.

Perhaps Billy hitting Steve in the chest while he's crying. His slaps and punches getting slower and less forceful the more Steve pulls him in, wrapping his arms around him, shushing him gently. Stroking his hair, forgiving Billy for the rage. Perhaps.