noun
1.
an act or instance of relinquishing, abandoning, repudiating, or sacrificing something, as a right, title, person, or ambition:
the king's renunciation of the throne.
Renunciation
You do not want him.
The taste of him, the sight of him, the smell of his sun burnt skin,
the touch of his withered, roughened hands.
His dry, cracked, split and bleeding lips, the shy contour of them as he smiles,
the path of his red colored tongue-from jollies and candies and sweets-
as he lavishes them wet.
Want is not a word you know, can't possibly know, can't think of,
because his eyes are made of both burning ambers and melted honey:
spitting fire but oh, so unbearably saccharine.
He looks at you, and his anger flushes the schoolyard-dirt streaked cheeks
into carmine spots ripe for the caress of yearning mouths.
You are averse to dirt, to anger, to unnecessary fire, to sweetness. To him.
Not even once you think of inhaling the scent of grease
and brimstone on his jacket, or the musky heady sweat
under his kneecaps after a game, or the cheap cologne clinging needlessly
to the brown nape of his neck.
Never think of his cacophonous laughter, the highs and lows of his voice.
How he says your name in fury, how sometimes the very same syllables
crack as they dance out,
hurried and scared, and your stomach
does not dance in delight at the strong emotions
you elicit in him.
Gaze remains on the desk in front instead of his figure when he passes you by,
never do your eyes wander to jagged hipbones and fine golden hairs
leading to the hem of his worn down and discolored pants,
when his garish arms stretch towards the ceiling and, ridiculously,
stupidly,
his head tilts backwards, like a parody of a swan;
his throat arches in a strange display of gracefulness,
but you still do not want to bite into that patch of flesh.
Fingers stuck in the holes adorning old socks, the same grey and dirty socks
he probably has owned since he turned ten, since his father
chose a bottle over having to provide for his only son.
Fingers tracing the lines, tracing the ridges and broken valleys that compose
the tanned body that has suffered more than what his friendly grins would admit.
Fingers gliding through the sea of messy, toasted hair that accents
his own brand of untamed, street wise beauty.
Pulling, rubbing,
massaging,
fingers worshipping the sole rapture of the sun.
But fingers will never perform any of these actions,
adoration is not a part of your nature
nor of your attitude or your manners.
Life has taught you to insult the likes of him,
to hate everything about him, despise and mock the inferiority
of his circumstances, of his talents, of the naïve passion you never learned to have,
so you spit out venom while your hand trembles from the unexpected
contact of his palm, and you laugh at his lack of sense,
announce to anyone willing to listen
to the desperate words of a man driven mad by resentment and impulse,
that his mediocrity will be the end of him,
that scruffy dogs ought to know their place at the feet of their masters,
that he can never hope to become more
than the sum of his parts,
that he will never rise above his own average prospects,
that he is unworthy of anyone's notice.
All the while you do not want to press the angry words to his shaking,
frowning lips, you do not want to hold him against
the wall behind and sear your breath along with his,
you do not want to close the distance until
his lashes intermingle with yours and you can feel the tip of his nose
barely touch the feverish skin of your face,
you do not want his gasping moans calling for you,
you do not want to bury yourself in the folds of golden strands,
bury so deep inside him until no one can tell
where is it that you commence and he begins, and
drown in the savor of all him, all he is.
You do not want to say you have wanted,
that you have longed for so long your bones ache at the simple mention of his name
and sometimes tears escape you
just from thinking of how ardently you need him beside you.
You do not want (and you do not) confess any of these thoughts out loud.
Because you cannot want him.