I Miss the Pretty Boys

A poem about longing for home and love. Topics of nature, heartbreak, belonging, seasons, isolation, consent, and the past.

When all I could see was white, I yearned for trees with leaves.
The leaves that don’t leave, where it’s never below ten degrees.
A boy asked me which came first? The insect or the tree?
I googled it: They grew together, like a sprout and a bee.

That’s why where it’s green, the mosquitos never leave.
They’ll bite you and drain you and make you itch ‘til you bleed.
With a buzzing in your ears, you can’t hear someone speak
So you forget to respond, you just swat and you shriek.

The skeeters are slower now since I moved where it's cold
But dammit, this snow shit is really getting old. 
There's a loneliness that comes when you're hiding from the ice,
but a warm body can make it feel like a paradise.