Excerpt 1 / Memoir Series

…

Growing up, the only gay person I remember seeing out in the world was Ellen DeGeneres – I could tell by the haircut first and foremost. It was the kind that all the gay women I’d ever seen had – a small range of short styles, a kind of code saying to each other: yes, I am here, too. My mama watched Ellen frequently in those days; this was before the dancing, it’s cool to be kind, mass-giveaway, loved by all Ellen we know today. This Ellen of my childhood was unassuming, lightly funny, and maintained a candor careful not to demand too much of America. 

Around this time, my mom also told me that Alicia Keys was reportedly bisexual. In my kid-mind, I assumed this meant she was gay. I had a little child’s crush on Alicia, the kind I didn’t understand yet was telling of something more about who I was. I played her song No One on my CD-player over and over again until my brother would beg me (or beat me) to stop. My mom being the slightly more feminine and more into feminine-ish women and my mama being slightly more fluid and into more androgynous-ish women, I’d plotted the perfect scenario. I thought that if my mama just met Ellen and my mom Alicia Keys, they’d each fall in love and be together. After all, there were barely any other gay people so the chances had to be pretty high, right? I day-dreamed about my glamorous life on the horizon – my mama with my step-mom Ellen DeGeneres and my mom with my other step-mom Alicia Keys. I’d have a fabulous life ahead of me. 

Of course, my mama would never meet Ellen Degeneres and Alicia Keys later got married to a dude. I remember seeing a picture of her at some red carpet appearance, belly swollen deep in that last stage of pregnancy, her husband over her shoulder. I still remember the steep fall of my heart in my chest when I saw the glossy magazine image. Had my mother been wrong? I was something past anger, maybe indignant. There was the realization that deep down I’d known all along. These women were never going to save me. In fact, none of the women in my life would. I’d have to find another way.

…

Beyond Ellen, I didn’t know anyone else who was gay in our small cluster of towns, and my parents rarely sought out a queer community. My brother and I did, however, find ourselves subjected to an array of strange gatherings. Other gay women my mom had found on the internet (Craigslist) or through friends, always some get-together – a picnic, a Super Bowl party, or the most popular: the pot luck. Women, like and unlike my moms, packing fold-up lawn chairs, packing shareable snacks, and certainly packing other things. 

These gatherings happened more frequently when I was very young, and then became a once a year or every couple of years kind of event. In my later years of high school, my mom took to hosting them for the Super Bowl. This was more an excuse to party than anything else. I’d look around at these women I’d watched throughout the years deteriorating into something I was terrified I’d one day become. I didn’t want to see myself in them.

To me, they’d all seemed caught somewhere in their 20’s – a second breath of life as out-gays in their middle age. Weekday night dyke dances at unassuming bars, jumping from dating one woman in the group to another, a kind of dating musical chairs, the thick smell of cigarettes and always, always nursing cheap beers clasped to the chest. They were marred by something perhaps inescapable. Some of them were serial u-haulers, some addicted to pain killers and muscle relaxers, some with other unnameable vices. These were the kinds of socials I’d watch sitting in the dark, gaze stuck between stairway railings and later I’d walk through, searching, both yearning for community and distancing myself. Looking at them, at this future, with shame and worst of all, pity. 

Some of them had children, though most did not. Those who did, however, who I’d heard mentioned here and there throughout the years, were from previous marriages to men, none born to gay parents like I was. And we never met any of them. Aside from these rare occasions, we lived our daily lives alone with our otherness. The only time I ever thought there was another gay woman was a brief interlude with my elementary school gym teacher, late afternoon conversations between her and my mom in the hallways after school. Not long after I moved on to middle school, she was fired. Something suspect about the athleticism of women, teetering too far toward masculinity and away from “family values,” toward a threat to the innocence of neighborhood children. For years, I was terrified that my mom, a school nurse at the K-2nd grade school down the road would be next. I kept our secrets close. 

…

Years later, I’d find myself at college parties, in clubs, music bumping, holding a drink against my collar bone, those slow moments between dancing where you find yourself not exactly with your body, where something you’d been keeping at bay catches up. Friends and strangers would often tell me I looked like I wasn’t really there, trying to make conversation as my fears, those earlier terrors, came back to me and said: you’re not there, yet. 

How do we emerge, through the long, laborious act of becoming when we cannot see ourselves? When we cannot see beyond a simple and faltering survival?

Visibility is the seemingly victorious first step of the revolution. But visibility, without rights, without justice, without all of us free, is a dangerous mirage. We thirst for it, our throats drinking its image as salvation, not realizing we leave our own, tender necks to the merciless and beating sun on our doomed walk toward what we perceive as freedom – a duplicitous shimmering of air. When do we realize we have nothing to grab onto?

…

Recently I found an acoustic recording of No One. Alicia’s raspy voice has an assured devotion as she belts the familiar lyrics. But there’s something beneath it, a kind of grander affliction, an overcoming, an acceptance of one’s lot. This is what I’d been listening to all those years ago. 

I still think Alicia’s a hottie. 

you and me together / through the days and nights / I don’t worry ’cause everything’s gonna be alright

people keep talkin / they can say what they like / but all I know is everything’s gonna be alright 

no one / no one / no one / could get in the way of what I’m feeling

no one / no one / no one / could get in the way of what I feel / for you 

when they rain is pourin down / and my heart is hurtin / you will always be around / this I know for certain 

I know people will try / try to divide / something so real / so till the end of time / I’m telling you that

no one / no one / no one / could get in the way of what I’m feeling

no one / no one / no one / could get in the way of what I feel / for you 

I start the track again.

what my waxologist and i have in common

i am getting my vagina waxed it is getting sugared to silk my waxologist is erica i like her a lot every time i come i have to convince myself to open the door erica is so cool and pretty and all i have is need between my legs between my body and the thick thick air erica asks me what i write about she is deep in there and i decide she is probably a progressive so ok erica i write about being gay and having gay moms and haha isn’t that interesting and erica tells me her mom is a lesbian and they never talked about it but her mom looks like a dude and always asked her to bring home a nice girl instead of a man one day my mouth is so far open the sugar mix warm on my skin and erica says her husband used to be a homophobe said he used to gay bash but somehow proximity turned him into a loving son-in-law isn’t it delightful how sometimes we are not what we repeat after all and their son asked her recently why’s grandma look like a guy and she said you know grandma loves women she says this is gonna hurt ready one two three oh of course grandma loves women you could love anybody you know but her son wasn’t really convinced i tell her about all my step moms and she laughs and laughs about the haircuts her mom’s girlfriends had i imagine they look the same as i remember too i try to focus on a smell on something but it’s scentless in here just the low-fi beats velvet and constant in the background erica gets quiet she rips and i breathe real slow i’m not one to whimper no matter the pain erica once told me i have a high pain tolerance i was so proud so proud of that she says she used to be terrified you know real anxious all the time when she was a kid when she was like eight there was this story in the news some gay kid burned alive or was it beaten to death can you imagine all i kept thinking about was my mom and the locks on the door she says pick your legs up we’re almost done and i say yes yes i know matthew shepard was his name matthew shepard i know exactly what you are talking about i actually wrote about this once i was always so scared i am scared now but she doesn’t say anything just all done babe and i wonder if sometimes me and erica were ever shaking at the same time standing outside our moms’ doors too afraid to knock but too afraid to keep our eyes closed i mean women alone together in a house women gay women alone there are so many ways to go there are so many ways on the way out her husband is waiting in the eggshell hallway she calls me girl she gives me a hug like a real one and her husband waves bye to me for a second i wonder if we would’ve been friends back then if we could be friends now and i’m so glad we aren’t walking the same way i leave the building out the front and it hurts but there is no blood like always i walk home vagina burning it’s so windy in the crosswalks i swear this is what dusk looked like in 1998 and i see erica and her husband drive by i duck into the alley i don’t know why i hide my face long after they are gone there are so many ways of going at home the skin is so smooth it’s like nothing happened at all

Lessons from 2019

It’s been a while since I’ve written like this and it feels so good to get back to it, even if just for today.

I’m taking a moment to reflect (and fighting how cliché that feels). A few character traits of mine that I’d really like to work on are being impatient and foreboding joy. These aren’t new goals for me, but I’m trying to teach myself small ways to actively work towards something better. Reflecting feels like a practical way I can do that.

So much has happened this year, and I need to take a moment to really acknowledge that. In the throes of my impatience to get to my goals and my insecurity in life and love, I so often move from one thing to the next, always focused on all the space between me and my dreams, how much further I have to go. I’m realizing that for me there is no ‘getting there,’ some grand place where I can look at my life and say ‘this is it, I’ve done it.’ Maybe if I can accept that, I can allow in the fulfillment and accomplishment of each step in that long walk.

—

This year has seen me through a lot of change, good change. The two things I am most grateful to have practiced and learned from are focus and endurance. These are things I previously thought I was good at, but there are always other dimensions to grow into. This time last year I pored over and over through my grad school applications. I had just spent months agonizing over what to use in shaping my portfolio, late nights after work holed up in my room and cold, dark weekends at a cafe with a friend going line by line. I looked at the year ahead and just wished with everything in my body that I would get in, scared of what would happen if I didn’t, after all it took for me to even admit to myself that I wanted to write. I knew I wanted to move to California and dreamt about this being my last winter, Boston’s freeze biting at my skin.

Change often looks so much more alluring and instantaneous than it actually is. In reality, I said no to a lot of plans. Stayed in nearly every night and every weekend. Had very little fun. Worked really hard. Saved every cent I could. Told myself to sacrifice these months, that this was a year of building and saving. That I had to be more head than heart, more homebody than adventure, for the time being. Went to bed alone every night willing it all to be worth it, not sure what was in store for me.

A few months later, I got an email telling me I was accepted into my number one choice of program in LA with one of their top scholarships. I got into a few others, one being a good second option, a near full-ride in San Francisco. I visited SF first, a place that for years I’d had in my head that I belonged, what was perhaps the more logical option, and the whole time couldn’t wait to get to LA. I couldn’t explain why. The hours felt thick and long waiting to get there. What was calling me? I didn’t know. But in the 48 hours I was there, I looked at that school, I looked at that city and my bones knew this was right for me. I met a new friend (my only friend there) that first night at the Griffith Observatory, gazing out over the blinking city, a small galaxy in my hand. I couldn’t wait; I blurted out, “this is it — I’m moving to Los Angeles!”

The next few months I spent working as hard as I could at work, to prove myself worth keeping on as I went to school. I found a random roommate online (who turned into one of my best friends), got the first apartment that actually is as adult as I feel. I bought my first car with those savings, put everything I own into it and drove cross-country to my new home in Glendale. Soon after, I started going to school full-time while working full-time, got promoted, adopted a rescue kitten, began helping out at a local shelter, and finally got to a good place with my manuscript of poems.

I say this all to remind myself, to pause. Because, honestly, I haven’t let myself feel the joy and accomplishment of each of these things. I got into school and immediately thought ‘okay, now I have to find an apartment’ and when I got an apartment I thought ‘okay I gotta pack and find furniture’ and so on. So I got into school, I got a promotion, etc. so what? That’s what I should be doing, right? Doesn’t make me special. What have you really done, Marissa? Those are the things that kept (and keep) reverberating in my mind. And beneath that: you are not yet worthy of love, of celebration.

I find myself being too focused on getting to the place I want to be in my career, writing a new nonfiction book that might actually get published, hoping to look over and share it all with someone I love, that I miss what’s in front of me. I am afraid I will keep missing things, eyes always on what is still left to be done, frustrated that I am not there already. We are a generation raised with the expectation of immediacy. This I know. Awareness, however, isn’t enough to keep us from making the same mistakes over and over. This is to force myself to look, to tell myself I’ve done good.

—

Sometimes it takes small changes. New definitions of wins. Sometimes we have to teach ourselves joy, altogether. If we’re lucky, we have friends who help show us the way.

One thing I started doing this year was introducing myself as and calling myself a writer. It’s an incredibly simple action, but it’s more than sentimental. I always thought I’d get to a place where I’d somehow gain the notoriety or legitimacy to say I’m a writer, that it had to come from some outside thing. Maybe when I finished my book, published somewhere big enough, if I could habituate and control my writing practice, I’d finally be able to do it. This year I finished a book of poems, I wrote more and better than I ever imagined for myself, I started a Master’s in Fine Arts program in Writing. And you know what? None of that was the ‘place’ I felt I needed to be to call myself a writer. So I just started telling myself and others that I am one.

I know that what we tell ourselves, what we call ourselves is important. It matters. We are always listening. It doesn’t mean that it always feels earned or even good. So often when that title spills out of my mouth I see eyes fall, smirks form in the corner of mouths, sense the questions behind those faces: oh here we go, and how are you going to make a living out of that? how do you expect to make money? how come I haven’t heard of you? It’s taken work, but I’ve homegrown the confidence to no longer quantify or explain myself. I know who supports and encourages me and those are the voices I listen to.

In the same vein, one of the biggest things I gained this year was finding a place to really call home. Externally this move to LA looked so simple and enchanting. All the while, I was excited but also gravely nervous about it. After all, I was no stranger to moves. Boston, Madrid, New York, back to Boston, each were good and hard in their own ways, some took much more than they gave. I remember talking on the phone to a friend when I was living in Madrid, explaining that I felt like the majority of who I was was on off-mode. I would go on to feel that feeling for the rest of my time there, in New York, and in Boston. I felt like no matter where I moved to or what I did, I couldn’t escape that feeling, that there were whole parts of me that were turned off, that I just couldn’t get to come alive. This troubled me, grew the desire to run in my chest, and, too, the fear that I’d feel this way everywhere I went, that something was wrong with me. I took that apprehension into my move to California.

I know that LA isn’t perfect, and I’ve been afraid of speaking too soon, but in this moment, I love where I am. I feel like all of me is on. All of me is alive. I breathe differently here, watch sunsets more often than ever before, find space to grow into who I want to be, and for the first time, feel like maybe I could stay a while. That feels better than any other accomplishment, any box I could tick off. Today, I acknowledge that breath.

I am trying the best I can at everything I can. Not just in work and school, but in my own personal growth and becoming. What I continue to struggle with, though, is that this work is lonely and laborious and so, so slow. It is rarely glamorous and it certainly does not end. It is exhaustion, it is crying in the bathroom at work, laughing yourself sick with steady friends, watching others go on without you while you get down to business, it’s failing, it’s losing, changing, losing, growing. It’s still loving and missing people who don’t think about you anymore, it’s learning to acknowledge feelings as they are instead of chastising yourself for them. It’s saying goodbye, it’s letting the goodness in, it’s questioning. It’s forgetting old friends, making new family, it’s everything.

—

A few days ago, I flew back to LA after visiting Boston for the holidays. It was great to see friends and family, and at the same time, the goodbye felt right. On the drive home from the airport, something in me relaxed; I smiled, flooded with the feeling of being so glad to be home.

It’s New Year’s Eve today. I never liked New Year’s for all its forced meaning, the compulsion toward comparison and validation. I’m spending this one alone in my apartment, all my friends away, going to bed early with a cold I caught back East. I recognized that comfortable drift toward self-pity. In that moment I stopped, grabbed my computer, and walked to the cafe across from me where I am now, writing this.

This year really showed me that focus, that endurance, gets me somewhere. That what I do today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow matters. It won’t come quickly and it certainly won’t look or feel the way I think it will, but it really, really matters.

An older woman I am sitting next to, sharing a table with says to me, “it’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

We both look up at the sky, craning our necks out from under the orange picnic umbrellas, a cloudless blue stretching to the end of our sight range in all directions, as if to keep us floating here.

I say, “it is, really. I’m so happy.”

I tell myself I’ve done good.

Her husband joins her with their coffees; they take bites of their sandwiches, watch an endless stream of people meander off with their red Porto’s Bakery boxes stuffed with spoils. And I’m still looking up.

in-class discussion on historiography

i feel the need to defend remembrance / it’s true / yes /  that memory / is a myth-maker / but it also never lies / he asks / has anyone ever seen / any ruins? / out of instinct / i look down at my loveless ribs / the crumbling pillar thighs of my mother / in an / instant / i can no longer deny / the stone of me / my tomb raided chest / pointing to a past that is not mine / but i still mourn / i am full of absence / all this space making me a thing / excavated / think back to Athens / the breathy climb / rocky stair after stair / after dirt and dust path / to finally reach / the Parthenon / how i felt the silence / of disappointment / my dream of the grand / the mythic / smaller than I’d thought / and falling apart / just like me / near fading into sky / how i saw / not toga and gold-clad women / ceramics / olive trees / just my own marred body / at the top and end of it all / got the sense of / something that once was / or could have been / i took a selfie with my friends / knowing deeply what it means to be / what has remained / seventeen countries later / still see myself nowhere / everywhere / in the high afternoon sun / i couldn’t imagine the constellations / or what the sky held / just let the light / take its inventory of the living / waited for a sea that would never / make it up the hill / nor stop trying

The First Time You See Her, after Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

The first time you see her you know she will gut you like a fish one day, start from the abdomen, a ballooning wound, work her way up to the sternum, make a flowering of your blood bloom wild across your chest.

& instead of turning around, you cup her hands to your naval, say: let us begin at the beginning.

The first time you see her, the gleam of her necklace draws you in like a proclamation about the divineness of the skin & the stardust it carries. You smile with your body like a dog at the pound, daybreak but not sunset, a sigh of relief. You smile a stumble in the dark knowing where the light switch is, arms stretched. She sees in you the likeness of her need.

She sends you songs that tell a story you desperately read. You listen especially close to the melodies about her marriage, about her mother. You share oysters over candlelight and finish each other’s sentences without even speaking.

The first time you see her, you are strolling the streets of Chinatown, of Cambridge, of Providence, of all the places your dreams didn’t take you (yet). She is telling you about the first time she hooked up with a girl, the last time, she believes we are, at the end, animals, not meant to be tamed into sanctity. You believe her for the way something instinctual in you, makes you keep coming back, despite.

The first time you see her, you two are crushing the loneliness between your ribs like licked fingertips to a wick, extinguished. She is walking to her bus stop, says: this is where I leave you, even though you both know you’re taking each other home in your own ways, even after you cross the street to yours, knowing there are still so many days left in the week to part ways on a street corner, that you will make infinity of a night together again tomorrow.

The first time you see her, you bend your throat for the taking & thank the blade for kissing your neck when no one else would, think of her weight behind the cutting of you. Grateful.

She will stare into you & it will be as if she is saying: do not hold me like I am a woman; hold me like gravity holds us all. So, naturally, you will make yourself galactic, you will make black holes of each of your traumas & love like you are sun enough, like in the burning you will forget you’re still the smallest star in the universe.

The first time you see her, you will recognize the hurt you see & confuse it for a love language, twist your tongue into fluency. Her mouth will call you by your name in such a way that it takes on a meaning it never had, like it wasn’t an accident those letters were put together, formed into sound, her tongue, your breath.

& one day, when the word love is about to spill out of your mouths, she will look upon her promises & name you a mistake. You have been waiting for this; everything about you, borrowed time. You will take your anger, swallow it, this will not be the same as burying it. She will stitch herself in the pit of your stomach, like the last one, make your hunger not forget her as she forgets you.

You will ride the bus to work in the rain & think about how much better off she is with her higher paying job, her family nearby, with her husband (a doctor), how perfectly it all fits without room for the otherness of you, your ocean heart, those unblinking eyes. & you will hate yourself for doing the work of your oppressors for them. But you will not entirely disagree, either.

The first time you see her you are looking in the face of your erasure, proud to be threat enough to call in that pink burning rub of invisible-making women, of making women, like you, invisible. & you will identify with the not there but still kinda there resemblance of something once written, ghost writing in the white space of everything that she is supposed to be & love & for a while you will think this means that you matter, that you had to have mattered, right? But you didn’t, & you knew it from the first time you saw her. That she would make air of you.

Mapping Me

I am anchored, forever,

in the archipelago of time

each moment a tiny island

each island an open wound

 

I, the largest mound from which

all else is formed. Listen, how the wind carries

my mother’s voice, all the girls who’ve left me behind

salt the sand with sting, powder my skin,

 

loss tracks me endlessly, baby pebble reminders

filling my shoes. If you cracked my skull open

like a coconut’s husk you’d find

a small pool of constellations:

 

here is the story of my creation,

see how it resembles a scar between the legs,

this one, here, my unspooling,

it is 24 lightyears gaping.

 

I begin to think even

the sunrise is a ruse, wonder

if I am to be bound in palm fronds

or bound for beyond this little country of mine.

 

And what is the body but a living memory?

Every burgeoning isle a palm,

every acre-ing cocoon a mouth,

like this, I atlas myself whole.

 

And what is reverence but a deep swallow,

a hallowed breath, the heart spilling over, despite?

My pores are born of coral, pulse open

to refract the light through me, illuminate me to better.

 

I keep choosing the hush, the glory

of perennials that stay asking ‘is there more?’

And what is growing (or healing)

but a race toward the light?

a slow burn

we don’t call this love, but

the charring is all the same

 

you keep looking up at me

every conversation digs us deeper

 

& I’ve loved my own long enough

to know you’ll always choose

 

the husband, maybe the saddest part is

I don’t even blame you,

 

just tend to the dying cinder of us,

not-very-deep-down at all,

 

I always knew we’d be terminal

hearth & heart are a pyre each

 

their own, for me, every feeling a smoldering

& you, every desire something to be extinguished

 

this is for the pride of knowing

I’m going to lose & playing the game, anyway

 

I speak & feel my words

ash mid-sentence

 

& I know my place, so close to the fire

I don’t even realize when I start to burn —

 

I play my part,

all ember & searching

 

you play yours,

entrancing & gone

 

all this not-together

the smoke rising

 

that eventually

becomes nothing

it’s funny till it isn’t

the intensity of this heat feels

like a premature call toward death

 

no, srsly, I’d like to cordially invite you

to my funeral

 

okay I have always been dramatic,

once a Myspace quiz told me my spirit animal

 

is a blue whale, of course, for their emotional depth,

which is my preferred way of saying I am sensitive

 

my Weather app tells me it’s 96 degrees

the ‘feels like’ is 108 degrees

 

and I’m like why is what it feels like not

simply what it is, I’ve never understood the difference

 

I used to dread the summer in my schooldays

(I still dread the summer)

 

how it always feels like standing silent

behind the window, stuck somewhere in the blinds

 

anyway, today I decided to take the risk of leaving the house

without an oily layer of sunscreen

 

I hate when something stands between the body me

and the walking in the world me

 

this is ironic given all the masks

I would slip between in high school,

 

how, even still, everyone looked

at me and thought die die die

 

the UV index is 7

(I googled what that meant)

 

I may not be getting it but I think that means

the sun-rays are so hyped on themselves they

 

can literally move right through you

sometimes people look right through me, and think dead dead dead

 

inside or outside, the flies keep swarming my body

as if I am already carcass, springboard

 

off my skin, ready to crawl into my eyes,

my mouth, I clench all the open of me shut

 

and I’m like yo shouldn’t you fuckers

be afraid of me, I am literally a giant to u

 

before I left for college, I went on this whale watching

tour in the Boston harbor. It was so rocky

 

I threw up until my guts were practically on the table

(all the tourists squealed, the whales were cool w/ it tho)

 

I know I resemble something washed up

on shore, too #beachbody

 

aren’t we all wonders of the world

one wrong turn away from fossil

 

sweat rivers down the nape of my neck and I think

about the feels like me and the very real me me

 

and I’m like girl isn’t it crazy

how long we’ve made it

 

one of us, surely, shouldn’t

be alive

Poetry & Photography Series, Continued…

A Poetry & Photography Series

for girls who are friends and also gods to me

I like when God and women are

in the same poem

I think God is

a woman

I think I know a god

or two

girl I think

we’re gods

we blood orange babes

we with the mouths

gaping

what holy grows

inside the dead of us

we’ve split in half so

many times

not sure living is

what we’re doing anymore

we with skin made of sun and

kin made of bone

cracking

and mascara

running

we

all black wearing

biceps round each others’ necks

we planted knee deep but

got clouds on our backs

clouds on our backs

like we been here forever

we’ll be here forever

we

dancing alone together under

the midnight veil we

of the rhythmic infinity

we leaves falling close your

eyes cold rush step on the

gas raise your glass hold

my hand brace for the coming

undone and

feel the exquisite the

relentless of

life cry and

hope we cry

and hope

and we be

we be

we be be be be be be be

we everything

Cher gets to me sometimes

nothin like being lonely at

the gay club, and dancing anyway

 

so alive so alive so alive, and

I can feel all the ways I’m dying.

but I dance dance dance

 

this night

this body

this breath

 

Do you believe in life after love?

 

Do you believe in love after love?

Do you believe in life after life?

 

I still got the wounds

time can’t heal,

but doesn’t the glitter hide

our blood so well? two-step

your regrets next to me

it’s like looking in a mirror,

the words of a late night prayer

 

being here tonight, being here when

the world always sayin / I really don’t think you’re strong enough

 

hands in the air

everything’s pointing up up

and we get down

we get down

 

sweat becomes my back

in the salvation of strobe lights

I live in all the dark spaces in between

and I hold it together

we’re all just holding ourselves

together

 

I can feel something inside me say

 

it’s nothing it’s nothing

said I’m something

I’m nothing

 

Do you believe in life after love / Do you believe in life / Do you believe in / Do you believe / Do you

re: the royal wedding & weddings in general

There’s something about ceremony

that feels like silence to me, like debt,

performance.

sometimes, life’s a party you weren’t invited

to. sometimes, you’re the shadow between streetlights.

the stranger with their heart in their hands

who only sees love

through the glow of a neighbor’s window.

 

and here i am.

me, pink of the sky

me, blood in the sink

the dirt tracked in at doorstep

this is what a lifetime of disappearing

looks like

 

i wanna be lushgreenpicketfencechurchpew

too, sometimes.

 

but i’m marked by something else, entirely

my love is ghost

 

& and i’ll never be

like them

modern dating & other verbs

*Below is a straight up compilation of real tinder bios. I didn’t write the words, I just put them all together*

 

Sup demons / profile says 27 but I’m actually dead inside / looking to trade rants / not into threesomes, if i wanted to disappoint two people at once I’d have dinner with my parents / future nurse, current loser / does not know how to do taxes / passionate about staying hydrated and / imagining myself in situations that will literally never exist / i’m ambidextrous in bed / dating me is like finding out that song you always skip is actually fire / must have little to no baggage / like i wanna be taken care of for once in my life / good luck / join me in my vendetta against overhead lighting / once i was singing ‘defying gravity’ so aggressively while driving i had to pull over and throw up / looking for someone who can tell me what is and isn’t microwave safe / i’m just a curious strip of bacon / Proseco mami / thick raccoon seeks trash / thot leader / can cook minute-rice in 59 seconds / looking for someone to binge with, food, alcohol, netflix, i like everything in excess / i miss being able to see the stars at night / we evolve beyond the person we were a minute before, little by little we advance a bit further with each turn / not my baby / not my baby / that’s my niece / after graduating from college I realized I didn’t hate myself enough so now I’m in grad school / I like long walks on the beach with my girlfriend, until the LSD wears off and I realize I’m dragging a stolen mannequin around a Wendy’s parking lot / passionate and aspiring to be popular / they call me Dumbledore cuz I’m the headmaster / for as much as they taught us “stop, drop, and roll” as a kid, I really expected to be on fire more times in my life / idk why i’m here / will hold you while we listen to Kendrick and eat ben and jerry’s / looking for a strong woman role model for my cat / i’m a goddess that loves to be in control / not a d-bag / swear I’m not an asshole / i share a birthday with the original American Idol, Kelly Clarkson / looking for sexual exploration grounded in authentic communication and trust / looking for a good bitch to sit on my face / i hope you like bad girls cuz i’m bad at everything / cheers to making mistakes and traveling and dancing / comparing Donald Trump to a dumpster fire isn’t fair to the dumpster fire / i like music and being a disappointment to my family and friends / while pondering the mystery of our essential nature behind all our behaviors and thoughts / my life is about as organized as the $5 movie bin at Walmart / just looking for a nice booty to rub / looking for someone who can eat the other half of my avocado so it doesn’t go bad / ‘i’m here for a good time, not a long time’ is what i tell myself when i eat fatty foods and live a sedentary lifestyle / y’all women are the real savages these days / I’ll be compensating for my mediocre personality with solid dick game / Hilary Duff was the first love of my life but maybe you can be the second / I’m 90% broccoli / contact me only if you have your shit together / just looking for awesome faces to ride / i’m kinda like a spider because crunchy exterior, soft interior / have the body of a t-rex / thick thighs that will crush you to death, i live a strong fat life game / Here for the struggle and the snuggle / 160lbs of linguine in a man-suit / carefully written, fact-checked essay in the streets, unmoderated comment section in the sheets / when we move, it’s a movement / & I’ve got a few holy places up my sleeve / Not looking for a hookup / not looking for anything serious / I’m looking for other half of my soul / I wish I was an octopus so I could hug ten people at once / Here attempting to fill a void just like you / if your dog or children are in your photos, i will swipe left, i don’t wanna meet or date them / sexy couple looking for our 2nd queen / not looking for a fling, we’re talking life / ain’t gonna venmo you no damn $3.50 you lochness monster / Open to anything just tired of feeling so alone / I can’t stop yelling about gardening these days / tell me / what are the words you do not have yet?/ or for what do you not have words, yet? / what do you need to say? / Fit but definitely likes pizza / summer baby but i like winter for the calm and the twilight and the walking on water / Kind is the new cool / Tryna elevate small talk to medium talk / There’s a certain satisfaction when you’re watching your barber cut your hair / Trying to get into running since it seems like what everyone else is doing / couple looking for our unicorn / couple looking for a female / We are a sane couple / Semi professional chameleon / Let’s go on an adventure / it doesn’t matter what you create if you have no fun / i call into radio stations and pretend to be different people / i am a bitch / a loving woman can turn me into a wolf / I just want to have fun / looking for fun / Been told I look like Ted Cruz / i want Lana Del Rey to curb stomp me / Don’t tell me what you do for a living, tell me what you live to do / i am the clouds of a november morning with shades of january / all we need is a bit of rationality and a lot of imagination / i am a flower who can rise up after the wilting / if ur existentially troubled and emotionally unavailable but u still hope to develop a sense of intimacy and attachment / despite the call for the void / hmu / i’m here because my therapist told me to put myself out there / but like / Numb to existence / i’ll be here until the friday when the skies open and we find our place within the great and terrible cosmic heartbeat / i travel, read, learn, succeed, fail, listen, listen again, live, and become / you should know /  in filth it will be found / life ain’t picture perfect we use the negatives to develop / everything is performance / everything is real / we are all stardust / and I’m looking / I’m looking  / I’m looking

snowy day free write 3.13.18

i think about dying a lot

but only cuz i’m looking for the endings

to all my losses

some things outlive our bodies

 

like love & regret & the space

we leave behind with nothing but our smell

u ever scream and make no sound

u ever think this is it

 

and still wake up w/ the sun coming

through ur blinds, u ever

hold on for too long

or laugh harder than everyone else

 

sometimes i shower just

to be naked, sometimes

i disagree just to be heard, sometimes

i believe it when they say

 

they love me. i like sad songs

and girls who don’t say my name and

rainy days, how they all got me wet and

breathing through my mouth, desperate like

 

somewhere between hungry and drowning

i dance like i’m becoming the air and

love like i already am, at least i think

this is how we keep on living, anyway

For the Love of Basketball

My mother coached my middle school basketball team because

she liked to empower kids. I remember the desperation that crept in on the court

as I’d watch girls stare suspiciously

at the woman on the bleachers who

smelled like endless cigarettes and wore the print

of my mom’s lipstick on her mouth.

I could smell their judgment over their

sweaty pinnies. I didn’t know then,

what homophobia was. I just knew what it felt like.

 

My mother

put me on point guard every scrimmage, she knew

I would never be the fastest, and she’d probably

be the only one to cheer my name, she taught me

I would always be on defense,

that’s how we lived our lives together, never scoring

any baskets, too busy defending our own. I swear

I was born with a pivot foot because I’m always

turning my cheek. What do you do

with a game like that? You’re always staying in the same place.

But you don’t have to be running to feel out of breath.

 

I was sitting in the passenger seat when she first said it: Homophobia–

Darling you will spend the rest of your life trying to swallow those five syllables,

running against it’s etymology like it’s a buzzer that you just can’t beat,

I could tell, she already felt suffocated just thinking

about all the people like her

who live with eyes in the backs of their heads, wearing the Bible Belt like

nooses around their necks,

and Matthew Shepard was one more notch in the belt that

in 1998 swung up to Wyoming, I

had only lived five years then, but each were long enough

to round out every syllable of that word,

 

he was really just a boy when his head

was beaten in by knuckles of discrimination, she said he died

tied to a fence and all I could picture in my head,

was Jesus, saw his wingspan, his arms spread open, dying,

for loving a man that much.

 

Hate does not know state lines,

I rode the school bus, and counted the number of fences I saw.

 

By the time I was in high school, the basketball program was

over and everyone knew who the woman on the bench was

and how that lipstick got on her face. The girls

traded in their pinnies for popularity, saw

how I was so much like my mother, the way we both

wore loneliness like numbers on our backs, so

 

I walked around the hallways with adrenaline in my throat like

I had the ball for the first time and I

knew I wasn’t fast enough to outrun an insult.

 

When I told my mom that we played for the same team,

she bowed her head, said she wished we didn’t, said

life is easier

when you’re not playing on a losing team.

 

But if I learned one thing, it’s that people should love

the way that my mother coached, like

 

even though you know

every damn person in the stadium is

rooting for the other team, love–

is sticking up your middle finger and saying:

 

I will always cheer your name.

Hope: A Working Definition

I’ve been having these moments where I feel like my heart is literally expanding, and it makes me lose my breath. Looking out the window on the bus, late in bed by myself, walking out of my apartment. I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels like my future stretching out in front of me. Like my time here, alive, is growing. And I can see it. I can see Thanksgivings and poetry nights and work achievements and friends’ birthdays and all of it, all of it mixing together, coming together. It’s coming together, right here in front of me. It takes the breath right out of me; I’m afraid to want a future like this but I want, desperately, to be around to see it. Maybe the best way to explain hope is being able to see yourself in the future, for time being both finite and boundless, and you, beautiful you, come undone and ever eager for more, still here. Still here.

 

The Weight of Things

Rejection is tied to me

like my footsteps.

I’m used to the fall of being unwanted,

by employers and girlfriends and

mothers and presidents.

 

No

is simply gravity.

All around me,

soundlessly anchoring me to the ground.

I am earthbound in desire.

 

Is there a name

for being not yet

six feet under?

Just marked

by the mud of it all.

modern dating sucks tbh

first girl made me her fool

second girl made me her secret

third girl made me her side chick

---

in the dark i am a collector of shame, something stable they

like to hang their hearts around when

it’s convenient, and leave when the tide comes in, see

how the moon lights me up, makes a shiny thing

of all these turned cheeks, isn’t it just the way of things, how

the broken glitter better

---

today

over drinks with my friends —

i swear i am nobody’s rag doll,

on the train ride home —

nobody’s second choice,

at dinner —

nobody’s garbage to be thrown out again and again

today

i am nobody’s

and other things a

bad bitch would say

---

somewhere in the sea

there’s a pile of trash the size of

texas and i have never identified so much/at all

with texas than in thinking

of what it’s like to be the total sum of

what all these hands have discarded, to be

what has remained, floating and at the will of nothing i can control.

---

and really

this is just to say

fucking recycle.

and treat people well.

Homophobia is sly AF

So I’ve been casually dating this girl who isn’t entirely out to friends, family, and colleagues (understandably so). Recently, we were supposed to go on this date to a cool event that was like three or four hours long. I was really looking forward to it, but was tentative as I have been the whole time I’ve been seeing her. It really is not a good feeling to be somebody’s secret, something they’re ashamed of. As much as you try to understand and support them, it’s still pretty erasing and painful for you, too. Anyway, so right before going to this event she texted me that her friends were going too so she told them she was bringing a work colleague from her tech company. I immediately felt anger overwhelm me and heard this resounding “NO” inside me. “How dare you?” I said out loud to myself. I did not want someone to make a liar out of me. At first I thought I couldn’t imagine sitting there, for four hours, having to lie about literally everything about me — my job, my identity, who I was to her, my interests, what I studied, my friends, my family. I might as well have taken on an alias at that point. But the sad thing is, I could imagine it. Because I’ve done it before, made up imaginary straight lives I didn’t really exist in to make other people comfortable since I was a child. Which, let me pause and say that I am willing to do that whole-heartedly in a situation in which I’m in love with someone, committed to them, and, most importantly, have agency around when and how I decide to do that. But in this case, I had no agency, no choice.

I thought back to one of our dates, how she kissed me confidently and quietly on the sidewalk. We sat down on a bench outside some restaurant, the quiet clamor of dishes and laughter in the background of that moment. I tried, desperately, to enjoy it. But I just didn’t. I didn’t because I was completely in my head the whole time, wondering if the people walking by were disgusted by seeing two women kiss, if the group at the restaurant set their beers down, disturbed. I was so surprised at myself about this, because I’m not one to be embarrassed about PDA. And again, later, as I settled into my Uber after she kissed me goodbye on the corner, my mind immediately shifted to the driver and his thoughts on that exchange, wondering if I was safe. Each passing second, a knot growing in my chest, my breath quickening, my awareness heightening, like my heart was training for the Boston Marathon and just now realized it was a fucking horrible idea.

And it’s this feeling in my chest, like I was running, that returned to me when I got that text.

Shame is a dangerous emotion — it only duplicates and duplicates until there is no space left for you to exist in with your shame there with you. And being around someone else’s can be toxic. I realized, then, how quickly I let shame in, and then I’d begun to feel ashamed about my shame. Homophobia is one slick motherfucker, and it struck me how easily it snuck itself into my very body, as such a proud person. Made me feel like I had to run away from myself, split in half, choose which parts to bring with me and which to leave behind. I don’t want to leave any of myself behind.

I have never identified with the coming out narrative. But I do identify with the feeling of people trying to force me into a closet I’ve never been in, building a cage around me, covering me up until I’m invisible. I’ve been thinking back, now, on all the times I’ve lied about my identity and my family — in the backs of soccer moms’ vans, in classrooms, on barstools, at work, first greetings, and car rides.

These days, I try really hard to live an authentic, honest, and proud life, and I never want to put myself in a position where the things that define me are compromised. For anyone. I try to transcend every facade I gravitate towards. I’m scared that the things I run away from will consume me.

How many times can I tell a lie before I become it?

If I shout out who I am does it make me more real? Safer? Stronger?

I’m not sure. But I refuse to live again in the moment my mouth closes and my eyes look away. I want to exist forever in the feeling of looking someone in the eye, as nothing but my whole self.

And I hope I can get there; I hope I can bring people along with me into that. It was easy for me to break things off with her for good, but harder for me to have said no to someone, even once. I hope, maybe, that that’s how it starts. Simply, by saying no.

what wrestling taught me

My brother and I used to play like we were WWE wrestlers,

and that’s not a metaphor. The majority of the memories I have

of my brother are when we were children, and not yet monsters.

Friday night meant watching large, sweaty men perform hyper-masculinity

in a spring board ring with Nick. Everything about it was

overdramatized and terrible and I fucking loved it

in a way that shocks me to this day. We’d sit there, mesmerized

in the glow of the television, hoping our favorites

would be pinned against lesser men under the bright lights.

My mama used to think I only watched it

because it meant my big brother thought I was cool as he quietly

and not so quietly shifted into puberty, but

to be honest, I liked it. I liked seeing violence and having a name for it,

for violence to be black and white, to be able to see it coming, brace for it,

and leave it behind in the space between the taut ropes. Nick and I

would play wrestle in his bedroom when we had nothing

but our boredom and abandonment to keep us together.

His signature move was what he called the “steam roller”

in which he would throw me on the ground and literally lay

his 200 pound body on top of me and roll back and forth,

stopping only as he steam-rolled across my lungs,

there was something in him that liked stealing the breath out

the women in our family, and I’d be caught dead before I’d tap out.

Even then, this is how I thought about power — the strength to withstand

the sum total of all your pain, even as it crushes you.

The more pain I could tolerate, the more powerful I felt.

I don’t watch the wrestling anymore but I still have an affliction with

tapping out. Sometimes, I feel like I am in that ring, my body slamming

into the sweat stained floor, the brittle ropes cupping my spine,

springing me helplessly and heavily into all the fists the world clenches

against me. And I pride myself on being able to take it,

for all the teeth I’ve lost along the way, for never tapping out, not yet.

It’s possible, yes, that I think myself a heavy weight champion,

contending against life, if life were a hairy, cocky, grunting man

in unfortunate spandex, which I think is an accurate description of life,

while the world just sees another body crushed under the rubble, but

maybe that’s how power looks, anyway,

not a balled fist, held valiant in the air, but a woman

pinned under the weight of everything

with a ribcage that can sustain the pressure of whole societies,

breathing, saying, not yet, motherfucker,

not yet.

self control // frank ocean

tonight i felt the us of you and me breathe again

for the first time in a long time

& i know i should be outraged and keeping my distance but

it just felt like breathing and i don’t know how to call that wrong

even though

//  i know you got someone comin

how many times can you come back for me

just to leave me in the same place

// i know you gotta leave

keep telling yourself

// it’s nothing, it’s nothing

i have to believe

// now and then you miss it

don’t you remember how

// i made you lose your self control

and now here i am, hangin on your words

// you made me lose my self control

i can still hear your laugh; it always sounds like applause

// wish i was there

i want to know what rhythm lives in you these days

when was the last time you opened the curtain of yourself

// some nights you dance with tears in your eyes

i can see you, no matter how many rows back you seat me

i’ll keep a place for you

// keep a place for me

// for me

// keep a place for me

// for me

 

 

 

 

 

(// lyrics from Frank Ocean’s “Self Control”)

Coming Home / 20something Problems

So, I’m back in Boston. And it feels SO WEIRD. But also so good. In a way it’s like coming home, and in others it’s like being in a completely new place. To be honest, I’ve been avoiding downtown and some of my old spots for fear of the overwhelming nostalgia and mixed emotions of memories this city holds for me, but something is telling me it’s not going to be as intense as I may imagine. It’s bizarre, but most of the time when people talk about college and how it used to be and the things we used to do, I feel like I can’t even remember it. Like it is just so, so far from my consciousness, the mindset, the details, just out of reach of my fingertips.

And it’s strange to be back in a place where so much has changed, and yet nothing has changed. To see people and communities of people I know or used to know who all stayed, continued on here after college, shifting into jobs and apartments and relationships so laterally, seemingly so easily and comfortably when I feel like everything I’ve done has been on such a steep ass incline. I don’t regret it, but sometimes I look at them and wonder why the fuck I’m always doing this to myself and choosing strife, choosing the jump, the heat of the fire.

I often still find it really difficult to relate to people, even friends. I feel I am forever marked by being ‘the one who left.’ Or maybe that’s all in my head, but I feel such a distance at times I wonder where it’s all coming from and if it will ever shrink. For a while I just thought it was from the time that passed while I was in Spain (and New York for that matter), from my own bitterness for having been forgotten and left behind in a lot of ways, things that would be mended with time. Some of it has and some of it has not.

Sometimes being here feels like seeing who I could have become, but didn’t. It feels sad, but mostly evokes a feeling of deep envy for the comfort, security, ease, and ‘loving relationships’ so many people here seem to have. Maybe that’s just part of this whole coming of age thing — mourning all the worlds you don’t get to exist in, all the versions of yourself you can’t possibly be but can still see. After all, the most common loss is of the self. Maybe finding out who you are is just as much about finding out who you are not. And you don’t always get to decide which is which, but you do get to decide how you wake to every morning you have here.

Because of my year in Spain and then my year in New York City, rebuilding my life over and over, and learning how to be relatively completely alone for most of it, it’s becoming more and more apparent how I’ve changed, how my values have shifted, my perspectives and perceptions of life and people have evolved. Not only are those things often at odds with this culture but what’s more, is many of the people I see haven’t changed or grown much, are unwilling to see things from a different perspective, to think about what really matters in life, are unhappy but never change anything, numb themselves, and create public and private facades. And this is another kind of alone for me. One I am getting very used to.

And this isn’t to say I’ve got it all figured out, because I certainly don’t. I struggle with fear and doubt and resounding sadness more often than I’d like. But then again we weren’t wired for happiness, we were wired for survival. Happiness was just an afterthought. And I can say I’m surviving pretty well.

While much of the time I feel stuck and controlled by life’s catastrophes and really really generous helpings of shit I seem to get, I’ve also seen how many things are malleable, that sometimes, not always, but sometimes, I can choose. And I’ve made lots of choices the past few years. I’ve moved across the world, come back, moved to a new city and rebuilt my life a few times over, cycled through countless jobs and various hustles, put my time and energy into a handful of different endeavors and adventures and efforts. I haven’t been held back by relationships or by myself. I’ve done many of the things I never thought I could do, what I thought was only for other people. And I don’t worry so much about being alone anymore.

Because I guess I can’t say no one really cares about me. That I’m completely alone. I always have my back and look out for me. My best friend is myself. And yeah it sucks and I hope it isn’t always like that, but bless the fact that I’ve got me. Being on my own has made me who I am now. I hope my life fills with love and connection and joy. But it’s good to know I can have that and lose it all and still survive. I know that. And that’s powerful, albeit dark. But anything can happen. Because the world doesn’t give a crap about your shitty or wonderful life. The world doesn’t have feelings. We give the world feelings, perceive it with our own selfish projections. The world is a fact. And we are an opinion.

In my opinion, I’m just trying my best. In my opinion, I am good and honest and kind. In my opinion, that counts for something. In my opinion, I’m always gonna give this my best shot.

I want to live a life in which I am thankful for all the trauma and heartbreak and losses because it has made me exactly who I am.

I want to greet experiences that banish the storm in me.

I want to welcome the sun with deep knowledge of darkness.

I want to live.

And it is the quietest victory. It is the light glowing between the leaves, falling on every terrible and magnificent crevice of the earth around me as if it is all romantic and meaningful just the same. Despite what I assign it today — my grief or my glory. It just is. I still am. And that is enough for now.

 

(hope I don’t sounds like a total jerk in this)

last year // next year

When I think about what this past year was I think:

the evolution of me crying in public: while I hide it and casually look out the bus window; on the subway avoiding eye contact; me straight up weeping on the sidewalk as I push through the line for Halal Guys without a single fuck about who sees me, listening to Bon Iver in the bath on dark winter evenings, lots of take out, even more podcasts, perfecting my fast walk, complete isolation, slowly being overcome with an old darkness and crawling back out of it, clarity, debilitating loneliness, overwhelming possibility, humid subway stations and the smell of urine, rats, more rats, trash, a million things I’ve never seen, fashion inspiration, hearing different languages everyday, hating New York, loving New York, hating New York, loving New York, claustrophobia, getting outrageously angry on commutes, the best food, cement everything, shedding and pushing away so much shit that does not matter, inspiration, wonder, being deep in my head everyday, so many events, avoiding my bank account, pulling away from everyone and everything, no one coming after me, independence, knowing myself thoroughly, reprioritizing, doing everything by and for myself, getting let down, exhaustion, about every single thing feeling like a struggle, floundering, making my own, bewilderment, panic, feeling both the pulse and the hardness and marveling at it all

When I think about what I want this next year to be I think:

coming home while also starting new, getting back to feeling like myself, being better, being more at peace, laying down in the grass and staring at the sky, breathing deeply, practicing gratitude, autumn breezes and fall foliage, old memories surfacing and swallowing them back down, leaning into the discomfort of changes I didn’t want, finding pride in loss, a quieter chest,  sunsets, nature, a slower pace, teaching myself how to bake, making new and interesting foods no matter how long it takes, learning new things for the sake of it, resisting consumerism and comparison, writing regularly, throwing myself into every possible manifestation of art, traveling, telling people how I feel and being more forthcoming about my thoughts and struggles (not just on my blog), letting go, being less easy for other people to ‘handle’, finding people to look me in the eyes and really see me, comfortable silences, human touch, being a more thoughtful and caring friend, showing up, being less jealous of other peoples’ intimate relationships and happiness, less envious of friends’ successes, saying yes more, getting out of the habit of hiding myself away and closing my mouth, presence, long walks, giving more, listening better, being in touch with my body, preservation, putting my mind and time into my goals, accountability, curiosity, cutting out things that don’t matter, dedication, calling things by their name, being more imaginative, finding a new perspective on time and success, patience, discounting shame when it comes, love and love and love, god, I hope a swelling of love

 

See ya soon, Boston.

stream of consciousness from Brazil

what makes a body a tool

and what makes a body music?

what makes a dream

different than a pulse, when a dream

is just looking desire in the mirror

of morning light? what makes the unknown dark

and yet not exactly night? what makes you right

or me right when we all live from different centers?

and what’s left after it all?

what if the answers are inside all the kids

we silence? and what if God was your mother

this whole time? I don’t know much for certain, but

I’ve seen some things. the only thing I know I want

is everything. and isn’t it enough just to want?

maybe it’s foolish

to still care about things that don’t care about you

like an ex-lover

or a country

but I like the way I look

with my heart always pressed up against my skin

trying to escape. sometimes, breaking free and coming home

are the same thing,

they’re always the same thing.

what if my body is a tool and also music?

what if we can be practical and magical

at the same time?

what if this is all just symphony?

what would our song say?

and is anyone listening to it?

or does that even matter?

what if life is just a practice in listening?

to each other.

to ourselves.

what if that is the most useful and musical thing

we could do? my body

is a tool and

my body is music.

I walk with pain and dreams, steady as heartbeat,

necessary as bass drum, trying

to find love in the melody

of everything.

my uncanny ability to run into everyone I never want to see again

Nothing good ever happens to me on the 6 train / and today is no different / coming back from the doctor / I happen to catch the same train / the same car / and sit directly across / from you / girl who ghosted me on Bumble / And that is the great irony of New York / one of the most populated cities in the world / and yet somehow so small / like the suburbs I ran away from in Connecticut / faster than I run from the rats near the 6 / and speaking of running away / hello again bumble girl / I’d like to say you didn’t see me / but you did / raised your eyes from your book / just once / and looked directly at me / for a time that lasted less than a heartbeat / I don’t exist in the hearts around me anymore / just float / somewhere between passing time and / all the skin I don’t touch / invisible / forgotten / It’s funny really / that they call it ghosting / when here I am / realist ghost of them all / feel like I could walk right through these concrete store fronts / Maybe the doctor will call me back / concerned about all this inexplicable gray matter I call / a body / this exhale I call / a heart / Maybe Casper had a sister and / plot twist / she’s me / Maybe running in to you on the train is a metaphor / because truly bumble girl / I don’t know what could fuck my day up more / you / or the MTA / Jokes / it’s def the MTA / I’m lying / anyway / I only talked to you then because I was bored / and you were pretty / I can see it still / your carefully sculpted eyebrows / the pigment of your lipstick / But I’m flatlining / This doesn’t even deserve / to be a poem / I guess I’m still bored / I’m not a ghost / I’m just a gay girl / I’m not a ghost / I’m just a femme girl / waiting / to be seen

i should really get a spare tire

scooping down the winding mountain road that is angeles crest highway my tire blows pop real loud and i can’t even say fuck before i know for sure it’s a flat i look behind me and there are two other cars also with flats us three in a row my phone doesn’t work for shit up here so i decide to ride it down to where i get some cell service and just pray i don’t do the rim any damage and besides what choice do i have so i pull over in the turnout section when some delayed texts start to come through hoping it’s enough to make a call at least i can see some nearby houses from here sharp angles against the blue sky antennae out to nowhere and there’s this guy with a truck towing his rv he waves me down asks is everything okay i tell him i’m all good but i have a flat to be fair i probably look a little helpless the way my eyes widen when i don’t know what i’m doing this is my first flat and my car’s so new just 8,000 miles on it and 4k of those the drive west from boston and this guy says he can help he has an air pump some liquid the name i don’t catch so i accept the help and make sure i stay at least three feet away from him even when he’s on the ground pumping into my blown out tire i mean i’ve definitely seen all the ted bundy specials on netflix there’s something so satisfying about pushing a bruise about confirming in horrific detail what you already know for certain and he asks about my massachusetts plates that i haven’t changed yet and if i’m an elizabeth warren lover did i watch the last debate and honestly i stay away from that shit these days i’m so tired all the time as it is and i say no i didn’t but i watched all the ones before which is true and also i want him to know i’m informed or rather that i am someone who possesses knowledge this huge pickup truck pulls up and thank god it’s a lady she leans over and asks if we’re alright says hi to me and how’s it going to the guy who has been her friend for twenty years she says yeah don’t worry he’s not a serial killer haha i look at him and he’s still on the pavement thankfully he is wearing some old workout outfit the spandex revealing how thin his thighs his arms are despite the belly i mean i could probably take him anyway or at least get away and i look back at her she is winking and says it again because i’ve yet to laugh he’s not a killer he’s not gonna kill you or rape you or anything wink wink haha and i don’t give either of them the pleasure of my smirking smile she drives off and i’m trying to call AAA but have no luck the bars going from barely 1 to nothing the guy looks up at me and muses with a tinge of something your daddy never taught you how to change a tire sweetheart he already knows i don’t have a spare anyway but i imagine he’s been nursing that question warm in his jaw for a while 26 years in i’m still never sure like really sure when it’s the time and place to disclose about my gay parents my gay self but this is most definitely not it i say i didn’t grow up with a daddy that usually gets people to swallow any further questions when he lowers my car back down all the air deflates immediately the tire must be so blown to shreds i tell the guy thanks so much for your help get in my car and lock the door call AAA over and over until i get through there are so many ways that we mark ourselves that we are marked later i am breathing silent through my nose the tow truck driver asks me about massachusetts says he can’t wait to move back to texas where he can live in peace with all his guns i look out the window feel the air change from mountain chill to city smog the next day my period comes on like a flash flood for the first time in years dizzy morning waking to dreams of red and i’ve run out of tampons from the month before just a pantyliner is all i’ve got for the morning a couple hours later a familiar wetness on my thighs i rush to the bathroom the blood thick and bright already radial down my legs up my crotch i strip right there wash my underwear in the sink the water slowly getting clearer and clearer but never totally colorless one of my earliest memories is the first car accident i am ever in our small ford sedan under the overpass in a rear-end situation i am maybe four years old in my booster seat the sudden halt as my brother and i munch i nearly choke on a mcdonald’s french fry my mom yelling scared in the front my mama always said fords are shit cars i’m not sure if that started before or after the accident we were all fine though i’m still breathing albeit i do choke back my breath sometimes but am sure this is unrelated i am so glad i didn’t crash or worse veer off the edge into the canyon below there is always something to be grateful for if you look and anyway the difference between living and dying is in one scenario it’s always possible to bleed once more