I was a fever,

a sweltering want

of beading sweat

a taunt—

like Summer

tonguing into existence

I begged

to last

more than a season

I begged to be more

than something leaving

to be more

than a plague

like peonies,

shedding each wilting petal

another lover

left behind

like youth

like something to be forgotten

I longed to last—

longer

Tell me,

I came close

once, enough to be called

a lover

once, I was more

than a pain in a man’s chest,

more than

an itch,

tell me, I came close

to being

more,

more than something

you are waiting

to get over

Eliot Wilde is a non-binary, gay, Mexican-American writer. They were born and raised in the south-side of Oklahoma City, and studied Creative Writing at New York University. Their writing has appeared in the Chicago Literati, Ohio Edit, WordRiot, and in the Lust zine of Killerandasweetthang.