Devotional
after Cyparissus
I loved the way he looked
and never flinched.
Only came closer,
ate from my hand.
And never flinched –
softly as velvet.
Ate from my hand,
shook droplets of life.
Softly as velvet,
the wound opened.
Shook droplets of life –
still, I touched.
The wound opened,
my god wearing a body.
Still, I touched –
I learnt violence.
My god wearing a body,
begged to cry forever:
I learnt violence.
I refuse to become a man.
Begged to cry forever:
called it becoming.
I refuse to become a man –
instead, rooted down
where no blade can follow.
Only ceaseless sap-flow,
tears moved by lyric
killing of a gift.
Sympoiesis
He thought it began in the dark: wood, room.
A glance, touch, withdrawal – brief weight of heat.
But he was already inside me.
Not love exactly,
but the rhythm that comes
before love takes
as rootlets move towards music.
He looked outward:
silver chain, mouth pressed to bark,
the body passed between shadows –
even then, we were
exchanging ourselves:
salt, sweat & microbial syntax –
gestures without names.
He said trade.
More like a loss.
I was sovereign,
loved the light on my skin.
But then this folding
into forest.
Not forced,
not quite asked for.
A pulse
offered up.
Nothing taken
without giving
in return.
My body began to learn
him slowly, as lichen
comes to know
its layers
interbeing.
Now he lingers
in my breath,
perspiration behind my knees,
dust residue on my brow.
Do I stay still
in his mouth
before language returns?
I search for borders
in the canopy
but find no shyness now
– sky and leaves indistinct.
We are still making –
enfolding the possibility
of touch changing
us irrevocably.
Drag me out, destroy me
after Florence Welch
I
I learned your name in the way of trees
learning wind – by breaking, over & over
until strong, or at least a belief in strength.
You spoke & the air turned to shimmer;
each word a shard I could draw blood with
in the absence of your feeling. I built you
in the dark that slow way: trembling piece
by piece – vessel, salt, breath. You looked
at me & believed me your passive reflection.
Desire came so easily; if only a body could
open, too, like prayer through destruction.
II
Shame arrived quick – soft
wing of a dying bird. A sin,
you called it, wanting easy
unmaking of the night we’d
already burned clean through.
Each mirror fogged, refusing
our image at your command.
Still, I kept turning your voice
rich in my mouth, savouring
even as it soured: love became
don’t tell. I would never; could
barely breathe for my wanting.
III
Some morning came eventually, dully
merciless, as white sheets ash-smeared
by the scorching of your body – incense
I buried myself in, writhing heart, before
I took it all to the garden & let the rain
decide what stayed. I came to learn how
it was never just you – it was the wanting
itself that hollowed me out. Now, the soil
thrums where I knelt: something shifting
like forgiveness or forgetting? No, small
animal of lust, returning to me. Please.
Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:
‘Devotional’ came to me when I considered possession; I wrote the poem some time ago whilst I was foraging for queerness in classical myth, its pantoum echoing the recursive ache between boy, deer, & god. ‘Sympoeisis’ borrows Haraway’s making-with as part of my larger hymn to entanglement & the slow recognition that no body moves alone. Lastly, the theme (inevitably?) summoned Florence; her lyric 'Drag me out, destroy me' seized a feral old memory of a particularly ruinous possession, which I invoked, then wrested into form.
Tom Nutting (he/they) is a writer and psychiatrist from Bristol, UK. He writes on queer ecologies, activism, and mental illness. He is currently reading for a masters in creative writing at Oxford where he was shortlisted for the Starkie prize. He won the Lisa Thomas prize and his writing has appeared in Magma, The Stinging Fly, fourteen poems, ORB, Blue Bottle Journal, BJPsych, The Hopper, and elsewhere. As an NHS doctor, he supports people with severe mental illness, is conducting research into nature-based care, and also volunteers with Medical Justice.