my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store, by john compton

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my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store, by john compton is, among other things, a clear-eyed examination of the body, its hungers, desires, shames, and pains. It’s a book of desires fulfilled, thwarted, and manipulated. The poems explore “my body,” “his body,” “your body,” and “her stone body.” Bodies that are “mercy,” “burning,” “rakish,” and “dampened.” They are manuscripts in which life is engraved, or poems spilled out of autopsy with stories that “carved poetry into my back.” There are “dirty boys” and “sadistic cum stains.” For compton, sex is both burden and gift, its fluids and actions work like spells that transform the speakers’ wounds into incantations of survival. A “new body . . . instead of stretch marks, / . . . has a multitude of hieroglyphics / scratched across its walls.”  In love with the language his body has held and both born and borne, compton’s poems resonate with a deep pulse of the indomitable life force of a survivor: “the naked body   a rosary / bead tucked in each wound.” 

Subhaga Crystal Bacon, author of Transitory, shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award

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my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store, by john compton is, among other things, a clear-eyed examination of the body, its hungers, desires, shames, and pains. It’s a book of desires fulfilled, thwarted, and manipulated. The poems explore “my body,” “his body,” “your body,” and “her stone body.” Bodies that are “mercy,” “burning,” “rakish,” and “dampened.” They are manuscripts in which life is engraved, or poems spilled out of autopsy with stories that “carved poetry into my back.” There are “dirty boys” and “sadistic cum stains.” For compton, sex is both burden and gift, its fluids and actions work like spells that transform the speakers’ wounds into incantations of survival. A “new body . . . instead of stretch marks, / . . . has a multitude of hieroglyphics / scratched across its walls.”  In love with the language his body has held and both born and borne, compton’s poems resonate with a deep pulse of the indomitable life force of a survivor: “the naked body   a rosary / bead tucked in each wound.” 

Subhaga Crystal Bacon, author of Transitory, shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award

my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store, by john compton is, among other things, a clear-eyed examination of the body, its hungers, desires, shames, and pains. It’s a book of desires fulfilled, thwarted, and manipulated. The poems explore “my body,” “his body,” “your body,” and “her stone body.” Bodies that are “mercy,” “burning,” “rakish,” and “dampened.” They are manuscripts in which life is engraved, or poems spilled out of autopsy with stories that “carved poetry into my back.” There are “dirty boys” and “sadistic cum stains.” For compton, sex is both burden and gift, its fluids and actions work like spells that transform the speakers’ wounds into incantations of survival. A “new body . . . instead of stretch marks, / . . . has a multitude of hieroglyphics / scratched across its walls.”  In love with the language his body has held and both born and borne, compton’s poems resonate with a deep pulse of the indomitable life force of a survivor: “the naked body   a rosary / bead tucked in each wound.” 

Subhaga Crystal Bacon, author of Transitory, shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award

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my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store



In my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in a vortex of a crowded store, john compton crafts a poignant narrative of tumultuous corridors and the profound experiences nestled within and beyond. Through evocative prose, compton explores themes of identity, survival, and the quest for connection amidst the chaos. In the author's own words, "dark corners & small back tables" serve as sanctuaries. From the haunting specter of violence to the transformative power of love, each passage resonates with raw emotion and profound insight on the tender beauty found in human connection. my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in a vortex of a crowded store is a captivating exploration of life's delicate balance between darkness and light.

Angelique Zobitz, author of Seraphim




A careful balance of hardship, overcoming, and instructions for living in a society that condemns your very existence, john compton’s my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store is a roadmap for the poet’s poetic and personal life. This collection centers the body and elucidates its vulnerabilities. Imagery moves quickly from frightening to touching. compton displays a deft hand at taking the grim and finding beauty. 

Mark Danowsky, EIC of One Art: a journal of poetry 




The title of john compton’s collection, my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store, epitomizes the poems within: they own a contemplative intimacy with the quotidian. Some strike as a Zen koan, like “eleven things i like about summer” final stanza: “i like it as much as when you said / that making love was like / making love to nothing.” It is a moment—like many points throughout the book—of intellectual elusiveness and emotional familiarity that begs to be meditated upon. compton’s use of ordinary things in his images particularly makes his sex poems delightful and devastating. In “all i could do was swallow,” he declares: “i cum like breathing a bridge / to help you cross,” and at the end of “fetish mantras,” he observes: “face down: the cotton / is egyptian—the thread count, expensive.” While the lyrical “I” in “our stream of consciousness” may believe his “kiss / doesn’t perpetuate homosexuality,” I happily report that compton’s poems do! And I’m here for this queer agenda!

— Daniel Lee, Author of “Anatomy Of Want



my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store, by john compton is, among other things, a clear-eyed examination of the body, its hungers, desires, shames, and pains. It’s a book of desires fulfilled, thwarted, and manipulated. The poems explore “my body,” “his body,” “your body,” and “her stone body.” Bodies that are “mercy,” “burning,” “rakish,” and “dampened.” They are manuscripts in which life is engraved, or poems spilled out of autopsy with stories that “carved poetry into my back.” There are “dirty boys” and “sadistic cum stains.” For compton, sex is both burden and gift, its fluids and actions work like spells that transform the speakers’ wounds into incantations of survival. A “new body . . . instead of stretch marks, / . . . has a multitude of hieroglyphics / scratched across its walls.”  In love with the language his body has held and both born and borne, compton’s poems resonate with a deep pulse of the indomitable life force of a survivor: “the naked body   a rosary / bead tucked in each wound.” 

Subhaga Crystal Bacon, author of Transitory, shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award

john compton’s collection of new and selected poems my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store is an arresting display of surprising lyricism and visual music, hymns of desire and longing that unfold like a song buried inside since boyhood. “the simplest things are erotic. i’m trying to learn love, but no one will teach me. . . i sat too close to crying too close to throwing my body off the edge too sentimental too gay.” At times voyeuristic, these poems have an accepted sadness folded into them, a wandering of imagination, a surrealist tone that evokes another world of escape. “we’re at the end & fraying: collect me in your fingers . . . we wander into a foliage folding into a thousand honeybees. his face, two sets of flowers: those planted, & those wild." There is hard-earned beauty here, within these lines, within these pages. 

  - Kai Coggin, author of Mother of Other Kingdoms and Mining for Stardust 



john compton’s my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store is a wonderful permutation of pain, paradise and pleasure. They write, “i engrave poems/into flesh on his back,//clean the wounds with alcohol/so scars heal legibly.” This feral collection is continually like that. Imagistic, bewildering, surprise surprise surprise. A book of fractals fused by love, both jagged and bewitching. 


Luke Johnson, 2024 California Book Award Finalist, author of Quiver (Texas Review Press) and Distributary (forthcoming)

john compton (b. 1987) is gay poet who lives in kentucky with his husband josh and their dogs and cats. his latest full length book is "my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store" published with Flowersong Press (dec 2024); his latest chapbook is "melancholy arcadia" published with Harbor Editions (april 2024).