“a love poem on love” © Timothée Barrus

i do not think you do. love sex.

niul/ the sign above your bed is so loud/ but i do not believe it/ niul, you do not love yourself/ or why would you keep trying to end your life/ i will use anything at my disposal to reach you/ poetry is nothing/ a tool, niul/ anything i can find to make you think/ anything i can find to make you feel/ you have pushed us all away/ stopstopstopstop/ you want me to stop/ stop dragging you by your irish hair to all these places that cause you to see into yourself/ let us photograph some of that hurt/ a collection of glossy reproductions/ eight by tens/ the way i see it, photography is either going to save you/ or you are going to kill yourself/ so, okay/ take my hand, boy/ and the first thing we will do is confront the sign above the bed/ click: the shutter exposes/ you to you/  sex with priests was not something you loved/ and your dragging me to your bed won’t work either/ i am no priest, boy/ it would be more than you could chew/ what i will do is confront you/ and it’s going to hurt more than any irish priest/

so what is the fundamental problem, tim/ the problem, niul, is that you never said goodbye/ to him/ the priest in his black robes you’ve been hiding behind and fucking for the past ten of your eighteen years/ he was all you had/ it was not an accident/ boy, he picked you because you were and are so isolated/ he became your world/ what you didn’t know was that there was a dozen boys just like you/ carnage to carnage/ your delusions and the swimming from the docks/ here’s what we are going to do/ we are going to visit your priest/ in his grave/ and you are going to talk to him, and you are going to say goodbye/ and you are going to begin the process of letting go/ it’s like a shutter speed/ you control the velocity at which the light comes through/ stopstopstopstop/ i will not stop/ it’s called fighting for your life and priests and sex and signs above the bed are only subjects you can learn to point the camera at/ and we will visit this dead priest in his church graveyard and you will bring your camera/ nononono/ yesyesyesyes/ and you will say goodbye to the one human being whoever so much as touched all the hurt/ adding his own scars to your turmoil/ even if he was a bad man and he was a very bad man but you loved him/ lovelovelovelove/ and telling him how angry you are is going to hurt you more than he ever did/ i do not think it’s sex you love/ it’s the idea of death you love/ but i love YOU/ and i am going to fight him for you/ you must learn to love yourself, boy/ not me/ not some priest/ not any other man/ just you/ so take the fucking sign down before i rip it up/ it is a lie/ photography is nothing/ art is nothing/ suicide is nothing/ you now have a lot of work to do/ no no/ yes yes yes/

hold on tight/