Zack Dresher likes the beach.

My boyfriend is so sweet
He says things like good morning and good night.

My boyfriend doesn’t use pet names
He doesn’t refer to me at all

My boyfriend is a clandestine chemist.
He stays up late wrangling his giant machines like demons,
sweat dripping from his pock-marked brow, gritting his tarred, chipped teeth
and he comes home early in the morning and lurks like a smudge in the mirror.

My boyfriend smells like chlorine and spray sealant
and I think it’s okay.

My boyfriend goes by Lance
His parents met following The Dead

My boyfriend relays secret coded messages in my ConEd bills and in the chat rooms of browser-based children’s games.

He slips on grease, he weeps curled up on concrete floors, he is cold in his affect and inarticulate, he has learned to leave himself and I’m afraid he’ll leave me soon, too

My boyfriend only drinks Diet Coke,
I don’t think he knows himself at all.

My boyfriend moves with great intention,
And he hopes with this,
His body might slowly change,
And one day become something better.

My boyfriend thinks the world is stupid
He thinks he’s smarter than me

My boyfriend holds me down and makes me tell him he is good
But when I look up at him all I can see are the clusters of moles,
spreading across his chest
And they look back at me, throbbing with malignance,
as his body constructs its own annihilation,
And I say I think he is good.