Time for love - Sean Lìonadh

It's Glasgow, March,
And we walk hand-in-hand
In the parkNow it's 3:13
And I'm late,
And it's time
I make a choice
We're both boys,
You see.If you were to go
Back and look,
You'd see a hundred eyes
Hurry to objectify
This hand-in-hand stance
It's a flurried
Dance
Of reaction.
Some smile, they're proud
And they want me to know
But there's a darker
Shade of brow
That balances the books
The kind of look that challenges
Like this is some chess game
And I'm in check
And I'm second-guessing
What they might do next
Point me out to all the
Pawns in the crowd
Spawn
A following
Whose glowers linger on
So that our hands
Are no longer holding
But dragging
Glare after
Glare
Snowballin' stares
Stretching
Elastic social disgrace
Through this forbidden space
And the scales
Are well and truly tipped.

Now it's 3:14
Glasgow, March, 2000 and 18
And I have to make a choice:
Have you ever wondered how to say goodbye?
To a friend's mum
Do you go in for a kiss on the cheek?
To a colleague, a neighbor
Do you hug them
Or shrug them off?
What if that neighbor
Is your lover?
What if there's no other way
To say goodbye
Than the one
You know will send outcry
Burning through the matchstick men and women
Who love to strike up ideals?
I'm a walking meal
For the mouths of normality
And what does that mean,
Exactly?
"We're normal!"
He says with his frown
But under his wife's
Dress and flesh
Is an unborn baby
Blessed with one more hour of air
Before she miscarries
And they carry that grief with them
To the grave
And they're not "normal"
Anymore
They're changed
And aching

And that old man, I make him sick
But he writes to Japan at the weekend
To get a friend to send the used knickers
You can vend from a machine there
For completely
Normal purposes, of courseSee, normality
Is a crowd-sourced fantasy
But it turns every
Single
Silent person in this park
Into an enemyTeenage boys blunder ahead
How much thunder are they carrying in their heads?
They should probably be at school
Drawing straight lines
Sprinting in straight lines
Thinking in straight lines
And when the bell rings
It's no wonder they want to
Straighten out anything that's curves or bendsOr her,
With the roll and chips and the kids
She'd take one salty glance
At two guys kiss
And be hissing vinegar our way
"I've got nothing against gays,"
She'd say,
"But do you have to do it in front of my kids?"
And she runs away
They never do stay
Long enough to look you
In the eyes

And a Bible basher
Rehashing LIES
ABOUT JESUS
Like how Poundland
Rip off mini cheddars
And sell them on as
Cheese SavouriesBecause it seems like to me like Jesus saved
A lot of time
When he died
For all our crimes
That he would've wasted
Teaching small minds
That love is no sinSee him, he thinks it's faith
But under all that din
It tastes like cardboard
And it smells like hateAnd I may sound
Angry but
I'm just scared
Because in the midst of
This
And this
And that
There's one person
I'm not looking at
Because a face looks different in the daylight
Than in the night
Where at least there's
No-one staring
But you're always wearing worry lines
And looking at the time
Because the last train home
Is always waiting
Because this should be
A small choice,
And there's all this noise
In my head.
I should be holding a hand
And I'm holding shame instead
But I'm letting it go
No, I won't keep
Weighing it up,
I'll put my muscles at ease
And they're 30% of my mass, by the way.
I'm a Homo Sapien
Elbows, Knees
60% water flooding
7% blood rushing
And half a percent
Beating heart
So why is a goodbye kiss
No walk in the park?
Half a percent
Doesn't sound like much, but
It's enoughIt's 3:15
Glasgow, March, 2000 and 18 after all
You'd think
It was just about Time
for Love.