The Real Tragedy

"What are you doing?" she gasps, one hand raised, with the urgent tone of someone stopping a child from jumping onto a live railway track. I freeze, with equal pressure, believing that there must be a spider on me or something. "You're using body lotion on your face," she tells me, relieved that she has saved me from what might have been my final, fatal mistake. Who cares I struggle to suppress, disappointed that this is happening yet again.

Unfortunately this is an interaction all too familiar. Apparently, some part of my first impression communicates a type of femininity on which I failed to deliver later. My skin care routine doesn't make any sense, or my bra needs to be resized, or my office supplies aren't from the same cute, gold-plated Target collection. Why does anyone need a gold-plated stapler? Are you assembling memos for the Prince of Bhutan? Whomever I'm dating cannot believe I've been getting along by myself, writing notes on scraps of deli paper and subsisting on a daily make-up routine of a little mascara. You know, like a caveman. So they'll sigh and take me by the hand to Victoria's Secret or Bare Minerals or some other awful cesspool of American beauty standards. I keep my nail beds so fucking nice for you, I'd protest in my own resentful head. My bras and panties would all match by the following month. And then from that point I've become another pet project of someone who was taught in high school that worth comes entirely from your ability to apply powders, colors, and fabrics to your loathsome form.

And inevitably, somewhere between the 3rd and 4th date, the imminent question. It's appears without fail. It doesn't matter that we're going out to a dive-bar with queers that are far more, shall we say rustic, than the one I'm forcing her to deal with. "Could I...," she starts tentatively, her eyes lighting up with possibility, "...please do your make-up tonight?" I feel like a little brother in a cartoon family, being made to play dress up with my older sister and her high school friends. A make-over dummy on a teenage sleepover, my ruddy, Irish face smeared with lipstick and embarrassment. There is no bigger turn-off. Trust me, I've explored many.

It's here that I get... rebellious. We're going to meet your parents? Excellent, I just bought new Nike high-tops. A lunch date in the park? The old trucker snapback I found on the street last night will do perfectly. I'm proposing marriage? I'm not shaving my legs for that. It's petty, I know, but nothing makes a girlfriend less comfortable than insisting on being the master of my own appearance. That and having a "formal-wear t-shirt". Don't worry, the relationship only gets healthier from there.

Of course with all of this comes the sneaking suspicion on my part that I was never attractive to these girls in the first place - that my minimalism and simple appearance was not, as they thought, a conscious choice to dismantle the patriarchy, but just a cry for help from a girl trying to be a woman. That from the beginning, I was an ugly house in a nice neighborhood, and with a new coat of paint and some landscaping, I would become datable. And thank God they found me when they did. They might as well date a man - it would be more of a delicious challenge to change him into something acceptable - if not for the undeniable upgrade that lesbian sex affords them. Ah, my only redeeming quality.

Don't get me wrong - I approach relationships with the same "let me get my hands on this train-wreck" sentiment. I'm no more innocent than these well-meaning straight-passing women, although, my adjustments are more geared towards the topic of professionalism or grammar. No one will send a subpar email as long as I'm dating them. I'm as fun at parties as I sound. I believe everyone has a streak of fixer-upper special projects coordinator, but this urge is compounded exponentially when the relationship consists of two women. Each of us is desperately trying to pin the other down into the person we'd both like to be and date simultaneously.

I imagine a fantasy conversation that they have in their own minds, mistaking them for memories of actual reality. "Huh," I'd say in their delusion, "If only I had someone to teach me in which contexts to use a bronzer, and in which contexts to use a peach blush!" The nine elapsed minutes it took me to do enough research to even write that line should be indicative of how little I know about these things. They'd swoop in, rescuing me from my ignorance, whipping out various-sized brushes from their elastic tool-belt, the cosmetic equivalent of every Avengers hero combined.

When I was in the second grade, our class was taught what was referred to as a "game" but was really a way to force the memorization of multiplication tables. The tottering students would make their way through the 5's and the 6's and the 7's, memorizing math facts of one table each week until winning an ice cream party following the 12's.

"Are we allowed to do two tables in one week?" I sniffled, already planning my strategy, forever the social calculator. I wasn't particularly attached to multiplication, or ice cream for that matter. Come on, Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip? Whatever. But the rush of sucking up to an authority figure was the real reward.

"Well," my plump teacher said, cooing at my adorable naivety, "Of course you're allowed, it's just against the rules." I stood for a moment, dumbfounded that another person could interpret words differently than me. Didn't those mean the same thing...? How can something be allowed in a game and against the rules at the same time? What did she mean? Was she envisioning me engaging in this activity without respect for any rule? I pictured myself screaming in high-pitched impish delight as I careened through the room, filling out multiplication worksheets in a state of rogue chaos, shoving the other children out of the way to claim my sweet prize. "Well," my weary teacher would remark, "It's against the rules but it's still allowed." Never had my theory of mind been challenged in such a consequential way.

Since that day, I've been paranoid about my communication with others - walking on proverbial eggshells through every conversation, making absolutely sure that I'm being understood correctly. So if some accidental part of me betrayed the pleading need for a make-over from the woman I'm sleeping with, I'd be grudgingly unsurprised. Figures. I'll take completely responsibility for the misunderstanding.

As a lesbian, I already spend most of my time feeling disconnected to the skills and knowledge that straight women somehow came by naturally. But the kicker is that I couldn't care less about this shit. As a lesbian who just refuses to fall in love with anyone who isn't quintessentially, culturally, traditionally female, I'm aware I'm almost setting myself up for the self-conscious discomfort. I come for sex with almost frustrating equity and stay for the outfit tips. As unsolicited as they are, I appreciate them. By the way, I missed the ice cream party. I only made it to the 9's. That's the real tragedy.

My Version Never Ends

It is those memories and notions that I'll bind by the wrist and yank into the spotlight now,

Drugged up and dragged out,

Like a slave girl of the Hutt.

But you don't have to.

You don't have to do this.

You can 

Find your heart a Her that cures your hurt.

And if her name won't come in bed,
Push mine out of your head.

And that head can't rid my face,
Sour grapes are your disgrace.

And if those grapes won't die in wine,
Another glass might ease the pine.

And if the wall won't yield to your fist,
Give that voice inside a twist.

Listen to its lies all night,
Insisting you've moved on just right.

And if that mockingbird won't do,
Then it's also a poor substitute.

Years later, you walk by the people in the frames on your wall, their eyes tall, their eyes full, like glasses of water. Kind of fucked up that they're forced to watch everything you do in that room. Kind of fucked up that I'm still on that wall. It's the middle of the night. You can hear the house settling, cracking its knuckles. Photos aren't allowed to close their eyes, you know.

Original Archival Recording of My Heartbeat in Your Presence

That biological espresso shot, 

Flung from the cannon of my body into itself:

A massive shattering of wood on concrete.

Wrecking ball velocity, 

Unhindered by it's obstacle, like a bullet 

Through styrofoam. 

Ventricles, power-washed with 

Cortisol and epinephrine, contort loudly 

In one violent gearshift.

Pupils dilated eons ago, 

Monstrous expanses of time, 

Probably at least 12 to 13 seconds.
They knew to keep a safe distance.

A moment of quiet,

Meteorological silence, devoid of barometric pressure

And then a second crash:

An implosion of emotional crisis.

Even in a controlled demolition,
The building has no idea what's going on.

How strange 

To be completely supine and still require 

The full structural range of skeletal muscle exertion,

Tensing almost as if fighting against 

The possibility of collapse. 

Questions

You ever get what you want?
You ever put your hand between your legs and pretend it's me?
You ever flash your life before your eyes and pretend it's me?
You ever hit a squirrel with your car and pretend it's me?
You ever call yourself pretty in the mirror and pretend it's me?
You ever break a nail and pretend it's me?
You ever walk away from your family?
You ever look back?
You ever walk towards them?
You ever think about how these feel the same?
You ever write a letter and feed it to your mailbox?
You ever write a letter and feed it to your shredder?
You ever write a letter and feed it to your sleepless nights, hungry, and squirming, and desperate, and yellow?
You ever Google "depression symptoms"?
You ever Google "is it depression if I enjoy it"?
You ever Google "how long has it been since..."?
You ever look over your shoulder?
You ever feel happy no one's there?
You ever wish someone was?
You ever delete your internet history?
You ever delete your actual history?
You ever feel the exact moment something becomes real?
You ever tell yourself it isn't?
You ever sit beside someone who knows exactly what you're thinking and says "no, this is real."
You ever feel kind of like she looks like me?
You ever pretend she is?
You ever wish you could stop?
You ever cheat yourself?
You ever cheat yourself?

Violently

We listened to music that once played 

At the house parties our parents 

Weren't allowed into.

We were

Clasped around each other like nervous fingers,

Taking months to finally melt into one rhythm -

The rhythm to a song I'd listen to doing the dishes

In Maine,

The mountains furry with trees, 

My hands dripping water over the sink.

I'm not sure what first drew me to you.

Maybe it's the same sort of pull that my fingers get to press on a bruise.

But I

Spent years reaching over the center console to

Console your center

And to be close to you even though

You said I'd probably have killed at least

Four people with my car by the time I was 25.

Since you left,

I still haven't gotten in any car accidents.

But I think about crashing all the time. 

It might feel the same as it once did to brush by you:

Violently and with no room for other thoughts.

Big City Impulsivity

"Blah blah other movie looks like this blah actress, blah?" The sentence torpedoed toward me with the  explosive attachment of an interrogative tone - someone was talking to me. Asking me a question, in fact, which has the added annoyance of an expected answer. I looked up. In the correct direction, even. A tall David Foster Wallace-ette of a man was hunched over my barstool. Wanting to reciprocate the courage it took to swing down to my neck of the woods (judging by his height, it must have been a long trip), I peered into his iPhone screen to do whatever analysis of the ginger-haired actress about which he thought I might have crucial insight.

"I've never seen Lord of the Rings," I said, smiling, hoping to spike the conversation with some sort of swiftly terminal punctuation. I turned back to my beer. Apparently that film was not a prerequisite to this exchange, because he leaned closer and asked yet another question.

I wasn't trying to be dismissive or rude or distant. He seemed nice enough. Stubble peppered over his strong jaw and jovial aplomb oscillated from his warm eyes. But even the most neutral, conversational interest could be quickly mistaken for flirtation in these places. As he spoke, I imagined us making love. It was less a fantasy and more a... compulsion; automatic and reflexive. "I heard they're going to make a prequel..." Thrust I heard they're going to make a prequel..." Thrust. "I heard they're going to make a-"

"I mean, I see your point, but the real star was obviously the casting director," I posited, jerking myself out of the apparition. "Whoever read a script about aliens and thought that Amy Adams would fit into that world obviously had favors owed to them up the wazoo, am I right? Thank God it worked," I clinked his glass with my own.

I was right. He said so, grinned, and turned to go see the band that had just appeared on stage.

It's not that I wasn't having a good time; I was just getting drunk too quickly for how alone I was at the bar and I needed the experience to retain its label of "pregame" without being gluttonously dishonest with myself. On Monday, sniffling through the band's Spotify page, it became clear that I jumped ship too early. I do wish I stuck around for the main event instead of getting greedy and gambling on a dance floor which was as fruitless as it was inviting. Unrequited grinding makes me want to walk into the sea. Imagine if you bought tickets to Beyonce, and left after Fergie's opening act to go stick your fingers in the electrical sockets of some club. It wasn't that dramatic, but still.

I took a deep breath. I practiced surrounding myself with both plants and coworkers to remind myself that change is occurring, even if its not on my timeline. I practiced colliding full-force with Bud Light Limes and miniature cigars to reconcile myself with the embarrassment that was the last line's wholesome self-care. I practiced what my therapist calls visualization, but what I call imagining what it would be like to actually pay money for something like dry shampoo.

Sometimes I'm self-destructive just because... it's fucking funny. The plants are browning, anyhow.

My Happiest Moments With Her

I have

Surrounded myself with people who better themselves for sport,
Who treat themselves like German Shepherds,
Who have had one adult finger raised
To the children inside of them
For their entire lives.
She did not behave this way.

I met her, in all her glory,
The acrid smell of burnt rubber
In the air, to begin my annual autumnal relationship.
Cigarettes stole her natural smell.
Now acidic and buried.

Tragic that I'll never know what it once was.
Probably used to be sweet like baby powder.

My happiest moments with her were when she was asleep.
Before we slept,
I stood in the window, contemplating her silhouette in the dark driveway,
The impudent trail of smoke slithering out into the November air between us.
I looked past her, a structure looming behind her gray sedan.
I couldn't tell if it was a cemetery.
I believe it was.