Weight of Want: A Four Part Poetic Series

The Mirror Isn’t Always Kind, But It’s Always Honest 

by Axel Jordan 

We rarely write about desire without wanting to be desired in return. 

But this work, these pieces, are not about being seen.  

They’re about what happens when we finally see ourselves.  

The beautiful.  

The messy.  

The holy ache of longing.  

The ways we learn to hold ourselves when the world forgets to. 

I’ve often stood in front of mirrors, literal and not, wondering if what I offered was too much, or  not enough. Sometimes my masculinity felt like a performance I was still auditioning for.  Sometimes my softness came with a tax. Other times, my body became a home I only  remembered how to live in when someone else held the key. 

These pieces are not declarations.  

They are releases.  

Not about masculinity as armor, but as open skin.  

Not about sensuality as spectacle, but as language.  

Not about vulnerability as exposure, but as resistance to a culture that confuses silence with  strength. 

Every poem, every line here, was a moment of reckoning:  

With shame.  

With want.  

With what it means to still crave, to still feel and to still hope. Without apology. 

The mirror is not always kind.  

But it is always honest.  

And today, I am not afraid to look. 

*

BODY OF WORSHIP 

by Axel Jordan 

There was a time  

when I believed love looked like a mountain—  something you had to climb  

to be worthy of warmth at the top. 

And then,  

he kissed me.  

Not like a man chasing skin,  

but like someone afraid the light inside me  might disappear if he didn’t hold it with both hands. 

He worshipped my chest  

like it was an altar.  

Pressed his lips to my stomach  

like a psalm.  

Said he’d move across oceans  

to touch the breath between my shoulders.  And for a moment,  

I believed him. 

That kind of devotion feels holy,  

until it doesn’t.  

Until the offering  

starts to cost more than the prayer. 

I’ve been worshipped before.  

Eyes wide with want.  

Hands trembling with hunger.  

They didn’t love me—  

they loved the version of me  

that made them forget their loneliness. 

And still, I gave.  

Because sometimes being wanted  

feels close enough  

to being safe. 

Sometimes I crave objectification—  

not for shame,  

but for silence.  

For the simple peace of being looked at  without being asked to explain  

what it means to be radiant and wounded.

My body becomes holy  

when I listen without judgment.  When I hold it with grace,  not as a currency  

but as a current—  

a vessel of expression,  

a lighthouse of longing. 

Touch doesn’t always mean skin.  And to be desired  

is not the same as being loved. 

But still…  

I offer this body,  

not as sacrifice,  

but as testament.  

Not as proof of my worth,  but as reminder  

that beauty can be soft,  

and fire can kneel,  

and pleasure  

can be prayer  

when you are held  

without disappearing. 

*

HELD LIKE FIRE 

by Axel Jordan 

There wasn’t a name for it then.  

Just a stillness.  

A quiet between my breath and yours  that didn’t ask me to shrink,  

didn’t ask me to burn quieter. 

You never tried to fix me.  

You didn’t reach for the smoke,  

or name the heat a problem.  

You just stayed. 

Not all love needs to be loud.  

Some of it just sits beside you,  

cross-legged and unafraid,  

while your chest caves in  

and your eyes say everything  

your mouth won’t. 

I was always afraid my fire would scare people—  that the heat of who I am  

would leave them blistered,  

or worse,  

bored. 

But you touched my shoulder  

like it wasn’t trembling.  

You looked at me  

like I wasn’t trying to hold myself together  with invisible thread.  

You didn’t flinch  

when I spoke in spirals.  

You just stayed. 

Maybe that’s what holding is.  

Not arms wrapped tight,  

not words poured in like cement.  

But space.  

Stillness.  

A sacred pause  

where I get to remain whole  

in the chaos of my own becoming. 

You never said you loved me.  

But in that moment—  

you didn’t have to. 

You held me like fire.  And you didn’t run.

*

THE WEIGHT OF WANT 

by Axel Jordan 

I’ve carried this hunger  

like a secret too honest to speak aloud.  Not because I’m ashamed of it,  

but because I know how it shifts a room. 

Desire is never light.  

It drips from the mouth.  

It stretches across skin  

like the memory of hands  

that never made it all the way in. 

Some days, it feels holy,  

this wanting.  

Like prayer with no words,  

just breath and body and ache.  

A fire kept just low enough  

to not set the curtains on fire  

but still burn through everything inside me. 

Other days, it’s a weight.  

The kind that lives in the throat,  or between the hips,  

or behind the eyes  

when no one’s looking. 

I’ve tried to outrun it.  

Tried to fill it.  

Tried to name it as lust,  

as loneliness,  

as a side effect of not being loved right.  But the truth is—  

it’s mine.  

It always was. 

This wanting isn’t weakness.  

It’s not a performance.  

It’s not just about sex, or touch,  

or being wanted back.  

It’s the raw, wild proof  

that I am still here. 

That I still believe  

in being met.  

Not just physically,  

but with presence, 

with pressure,  

with patience. 

To want  

and stay present in the wanting.  To hold the ache  

without numbing it,  

without explaining it away—  

that’s power. 

So I do not apologize  

for craving.  

I do not shrink  

when I reach.  

I am not ashamed  

of my longing. 

Because this ache  

isn’t what makes me fragile.  

It’s what makes me real.  

And maybe,  

if we’re honest,  

we’re all just walking through the world  hoping someone will see our hunger  and say:  

you don’t have to hold that alone. 

*

WHEN MEN CRY IN SILENCE 

There are tears  

that never reach the surface.  

Not because they don’t want to,  

but because they’ve learned  

there’s no room for them  

in a man’s throat. 

We’re told to hold it in.  

To breathe deeper.  

To toughen up.  

To be the mountain  

while the world shakes. 

And so we do.  

We laugh when we want to scream.  

We lift weights we cannot name.  

We fuck when what we really need  

is to be held. 

Some of us cry in showers.  

Some of us cry  

between songs that no one else hears.  

Some of us cry  

only in dreams,  

only when the body forgets  

how to lie. 

I have cried without a sound—  

not because I am strong,  

but because I was never taught  

how to be soft  

and still be safe. 

And sometimes,  

when you see us  

silent,  

stone-faced,  

staring into some place far away—  

know that we are praying.  

Not to be saved.  

Just to be felt.  

Just to be forgiven  

for feeling at all.

This silence is not strength.  It is the echo  

of what we weren’t allowed to say. 

But maybe today,  

this body will weep  

without asking for permission.  Maybe today,  

this ache will turn to water  and that water  

will turn to breath  

and that breath  

will turn to voice. 

And maybe  

that voice  

will finally say:  

I hurt,  

I long,  

I need—  

and I am still a man.