Platonic Love — Blackbird Archive

← v21n2, Fall 2022

I do my best to tolerate it because

unspent love is poison.

Sometimes, when I go in

for hugs on friends

I’m mad at,

I think

I can quantify love

at every place

it’s not shown,

wrap my arms

around and close

to a quiet crush of their bones,

a smooth break of vessels,

the rush of blood

where the skin splits

leaked into mugs and bowls,

and that perhaps,

I could tear my friend in two,

shake his halves loose,

drippings dropped

from the entrails as dirt

from plant roots.

friendship love violence

Dustin Pearson

Dustin Pearson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine, Bennington Review , Noctua Review , Yemassee , and elsewhere . He was awarded the 2015 Katharine C. Turner Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and has received fellowships from The Watering Hole, Cave Canem, and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. He is an MFA candidate at Arizona State University, where he serves as the editor of Hayden's Ferry Review .