Emily Vance Brown

by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Utopia is an impossible demand. Most likely,
it’s what happens when no one’s looking.

On Grindr, my profile stated: DESIRE IS A PLANET
TRAPPED INSIDE AN EVEN BIGGER PLANET.

The men I met were aroused by the world; 
I was aroused by the opposite of the world.

Turns out there can be so much night
inside a single man that to be contained

within it is a kind of violence. Turns out the body
is so much more than I ever bargained for.

Of course I didn’t love them properly—I lived
with the vastness and loneliness of a continent.

Please don’t ask me to define love.
All I have is a second language.