Jaiden Geolingo

Boyhood Requiem

& this is just another word for elegy
because I am mechanical & hold deserts for tear ducts. I remember December
where I dressed myself with metal            music because this is what makes me a man.
           Do you remember: in the outskirts of Boyland, I burned footballs & Marshall’s
cologne
                        to release the smell of violence because this is evolution:
christened & baptized with bullets. Tell your father to worship himself as jovial instead
            of praying with serrated lips; I got my hands on all the shotguns & it is now
carmine
with sand, the weather stillborn. How once, I grieved for bodies & bodies on this overgrown
   patch of dead weeds that know the difference between boy & Boy. How, yes, this is
cliché.
Suppose there’s no finish line by my boy-body except more wiring.   The liturgy
            of the local cathedral commences & they shun me away, amygdala short-
circuiting
to make me into a hormonal boy.
Over & over again I reek of beer instead of         light.
Here we are in this martyred area of boys. We are all    still
& running &
still     men
&       still     animals.

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Jaiden Geolingo is a Pinoy writer based in Georgia, United States. He has been publicly recognized by The National YoungArts Foundation, The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Young Poets Network, among others. Additionally, his work can be found published or forthcoming in Dishsoap Quarterly, The Poetry Society, eunoia and other journals. Someday, he will be good at math.