Slammed & Split

Stay Beautiful

Stay beautiful.

It's a throwaway line,
designed to deliver
an impact every time.

I try to say it
to one person a day,
an unprompted
undressed
pure statement of faith.

Stay beautiful.

Like you are
when you give the up and under puppy dog
gently,
nervously,
chewing on your lower lip
because you want to be kissed,
and that face --
that gorgeous fucking face --
diffuses whatever words
and closes the space between
flirtation
and relations
without a single spoken sentence.

Stay beautiful.

When you walk through the living room
only to curl up on the couch
for cartoons
or the news
some lazy midafternoon,
sweats, socks and PJs
have never seemed so sexy.

Or when you laugh so hard you snort
and try to hide it
which only makes us laugh harder
because you're a dork,
and that's totally okay.

Stay beautiful.

Like letting it go
when we say something preposterous
and refuse to accept an alternative answer
because knowing you're right is good enough
and knowing we think we are
is worth the ego boost you know we need
because we're boys
and need to be treated like the dogs we are --
petted and baby-talked to
and reminded that we're your favorite.
Yes we are.
Yes we are your favorite.
Aren't we?
Yes we are.
*Nuzzle Nuzzle Nuzzle*

Stay beautiful.

And introduce us to others
in ways that embarrass us
in their sincerity
and indulgence
of job title embellishment
and hobby glorification;
they secretly make us feel more like men
than anything we could say ourselves.

Dress up all out
for a dinner party
and come round the corner
in a reveal we've seen
so many times before,
but never fails
to make us fall in love for the first time
every time.

Stay beautiful.

You should know that you are.

Stay beautiful.

Wrapped in our arms.

Stay beautiful.

It comes from the heart.

Stay beautiful.

There's no other place to start.