ALL-STAR DESIRE, by Franco D’Alessandro

As a high school football player, I wanted to die

Every day;

Not kill myself…

Just die

A lot.

End it all. Be a hero. Not a queer-o.

As a high school football player, I was an

All-Star;

I wanted to love among those stars,

Not tread the earth among the constant fear;

I never knew the courage it took to wake up each day,

To not let the world know of the small explosions

That pulsed through my soul -the longings

For that unspoken unspeakable moment when

Everything is to be told

and he’s holding me.

At 17, the more I grew, the stronger I became

The less alive I felt

I was a faint fire in those wild, frozen ephebic woods

Waiting and wanting to warm anyone;

Comforted by only the warm whisper of coulds

I would do so much, I wanted

To do so much more,

But my self-imposed exile was an outstretched hand

To no man’s land.

Then I read A Streetcar Named Desire

And somehow saw myself in some way in Blanche

I didn’t want to kill myself.

The first boy I ever kissed did that –

the day after he lovingly set my lips afire.

Yes; Love… all at once and much too completely *

I just wanted more and more

-I was an expanding galaxy of want-

My only need, desire

I wanted more- than Blanche, and Brick, and Chance, and Lady…

I fell impossibly in love with a college boy named Nick,

And chased him for two years living on hope and maybe.

When I was a high school football player

I wanted

More to hide than be seen;

And I wanted more to be dead than alive;

But then I learned that

death is the opposite of desire, *

And I wanted so much more than to just survive,

To be so much more than just alive;

I wanted…SO MUCH….

I wanted

To be someone’s fire

I wanted

More and more and more

To be desired.

*lines spoken by Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire