i have seen the end of the universe

…………………….A Golden Shovel, after Paul Tran

i can see further than any person. can you imagine the death i
witness from the far side of the universe each day? can you see
the black rays of those dying stars, coming together like crop circles not
yet burned? i hold their last lights in my eyes, reminding me stars,
while not my direct ancestors, are my true family, black as me but
free. maybe that’s why they call them afterimages—to keep me from their
kinship. i wonder if, from their point of view, i am a light
or the black they have left me—leave me. i find myself reaching
for someone to know, to show them what i now see: life across
the galaxy. there is dancing and bickering and grieving plus all of the
human things we have here, minus the longing for cause and effect. distance
will not disconnect me from this community. there is a joy in between.
look. the end of the universe is full of life, free from us.

i hope this message finds you well.……………….

I am aware it’s not your fault

………..I am a gay man who happened
………..to find you, a straight man, attractive

but if we were supposed to be brothers,

………..we were best friends who said I love
………..you and spent nights with each other,

you should have loved me enough to say

………..sorry for not loving you the way
………..that you loved me. Stop telling me it’s

alright. I know I am asking you for

………..something convenient for both of
………..us which, let’s be honest, is just

too much. Brotherhood is supposed to be

………..easy. But it’s not. I said I was losing
………..my mind and you threatened me with

dropping everything and coming to my house and

……….beating the suicidal thoughts out of
……….me. And now you spend your time lying

to my mom and all of my old friends

……….about how everything went down
……….and how you miss our friendship.

We were brothers and we always said as much

……….but you stopped trying. I was done being
……….the only one. I didn’t block your number.

Text me, brother. I haven’t heard from you in years.

____

Mack Rogers is a queer Black writer whose work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Foglifter, The Pinch, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. Mack is a poetry reader at Split Lip Magazine and poetry editor for Zero Readers Magazine. He lives with his partner and their three cats near Raleigh, North Carolina.