3 poems
by Barker Thompson
Barker Thompson is a 16-year-old queer writer who lives in Los Angeles. Other than poetry, Barker writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and hybrid prose/prose poetry. A junior in high school, Barker recently completed a semester-long creative nonfiction elective wherein he explored his voice through creating pieces such as a short memoir, a portrait of a place, and a synecdoche piece. In his writing, Barker explores themes such as love, relationships, identity, and mental illness. When he is not writing, he is waiting for an iced almond latte or finishing a season of Shameless.
Lifeguard
And I’m guessing this is how I leave
you between the freckled sheets caught
up in yourself destined to
know my love eventually
forget what I told you giddy on cliff’s
edge halfway down 51st street I said
I loved you just because three years is too
long to kiss dreams goodbye leave
the spare key somewhere hard to
find make it hard for me to come
back and never change on sleepless
nights I lay face down pull on memories
and quivering skin to remember
what I learned from you
simply put to love you is to sink
under water under myself
visit me soon and watch me float
down everything you are not
Yardsale
I am sixteen years old but an empty promise
and there is one thing left that I need to do in this life:
I must get lost. I must dress in black waterfalls
opaque valleys that grow as my steps do
they drench me in all that I am not
divide me into sections I am but
a checkerboard of desirables. Folded
breaths deep enough to fill gaps that I slipped through
seep into locked cages, the things
my body has rejected. Have I won?
I push out from inside myself, rupture this makeshift
thing I once called human and follow the exit signs.
First Date
Sweet thoughts I suck
on synapses and call you
real, curl your hair, it is
electrochemical sweetheart,
with my finger, real but not
real, and dream of keys and
keyholes. I am in love with
you or this fabrication of you
that I touch and
feel
nothing
at
all.