A Sugarcaning

Such a morning in you right now -

Sunrise in your voice.
When I see you, 
I'll be like a berry.
Grow fat in the sun, 
"as if storing sunshine for 
The cold months ahead,” 
as Alexa Weibel put it.
Recently you said to me
That I feel like home,
That you want to come home.
But you are what you eat, or
More accurately, you are
If you eat.
And if you don't intend to keep
Something alive,
Then don't feed it.
Sometimes you give the best 
Of yourself to others.
I get the leftovers.
I'm a safe harbor I guess. 
Go play but then come home. 
Don't forget where home is. 
Is it easy to leave me alone?
I have memories of my 
Days in your sun. 
A new day has begun,

But I'll still take a moment for us

Over a minute with you.

Water on the Surface

Three long weeks ago,
NASA scientists discovered a potentially inhabitable
"Earth-like" planet,
Orbiting around a host red dwarf star;
Temperature comparable to Earth's;
Liquid water on the surface - just like Earth's.

Earth-like.

Perhaps our next planet should be
At least slightly different than the
One we have now.
I'm ready to live somewhere new.

I'm ready for the moments in the morning
When her fingers rove over the pockmarked, lunar-like
Surfaces of my thighs -
Searching for a possibility,
As I orbit dizzily.
She is holding her breath like a team of researchers,
Running a detectability index framework,
Wondering if this is a safe place
To find life.

Still

In the beginning, we'd never have sex on top of the same thing twice, remember?
Her breath would be shallow and pleading.
That was the only time you really needed me, remember?
Right before your body reshuffled itself,
Like a deck of cards.

Several nights ago you told me you needed me forever.
But hey, the beginning still matters, because
If someone handed me a transcript of the last 8 months,
I'd still highlight every word on that page.

She still does that a lot. Reshuffles. I can see it;
She says words that I've heard before
But never in that order or at just that time.
She keeps reminding me about feelings that I'm still only just finding out about.

And hey, there's still space between us.
Instead of watching movies we
Make lists of movies to watch and
Instead of going on trips we
Make lists of cabins to carry each other over the thresholds of and
Instead of sliding fingers into and over and around each other we
Clutch phones to our still heads and slide words into each other's ears
Which miraculously feel similar enough sometimes.

The only time I've felt like the second thing on her mind is
When there was a horse in front of us.
He liked her better than me too,
But I still got to watch,
Which miraculously was enough that time.

Depression Room

She is finished cleaning her room.
Her "depression room" she calls it.
The crumpled notes and envelopes strewn across the desk have been
Ironed out and piled neatly,
Like flags of dead nations.
The empty plastic water bottles have been
Swept into a bin
And the sprawling peaks and puffs of plaid laundry mountains have been
Collected in a singular, central location.
Except for my jeans.
They stayed on the floor, right where they were hastily deposited.

Before she finished cleaning her room
I laid under a heavy pile
Of hoodies and tshirts,
Remarking that this was quite a comfortable pressure
Under which to sleep.
She suggested I purchase a weighted blanket.
I didn't have the words to tell her
That the position had already been filled, as
I didn't feel the need for a weighted blanket while she lay next to me.
She is, so much with me.
She is so much, with me.

She is finished cleaning her room and returns to me.
I lay my sleepy head on her shoulder.
She says "thank God; at least we know we'd be compatible".
It's a hollow offering,
Like so many Plans B that will never see the edge
Of the cutting room floor.
I do not thank God.
Now, driving home, I feel like I'm falling through a great space.
Like I have hundreds of miles of empty distance around me.
So much room.
So much depression room.

So I spend a little bit of time
Mourning the loss of something that was never mine,
Mending clothes that actually
Still have a lot of wear left in them,
Making remarks
To re-mark territory
That already has a flag
Buried in its wrinkles.
The flag lies fallow right now
But its nation could kick my ass.
Ironically, she's into that sort of thing.

Later, After the Ice Cubes had Melted

I knew a girl in college who never told anyone
Anything. It wasn't any of their business.
She only looked me in the eyes once.
One time, in all of the years we spent in
The same kitchens, tramping around the same wooden apartment floors,
Sticky with light beer and heavy fingers.

She had been dancing with a man
In the low light of a rural shithole bungalow
House party, his eyes blurry and, at the same time completely transparent.
His hand wandered up her thigh
And under her shirt, his fingers asking and, at the same time demanding.
Immediately she stopped her gyrational motion,
Reached for the beer he had close to his face.
His now inquisitive eyes widened in confusion and he floated it up, up,
Higher, out of her reach.
She finally caught up to it, now directly over his head, and
Squeezed the thin aluminum until it's cheap,
Reduced contents rained down on his scalp.
As he swore and spat, shrinking back
Into the carpeted darkness of the party,
Her eyes found mine from across the room.
I handled it the same way he did.

Tonight I sauteed garlic and basil in olive oil.
They say there are certain populations on Earth
With markedly higher life expectancies than average.
They have little in common besides a
Generous employment of olive oil in their cooking.
Olive oil,
The more dry and puckering the better,
How jealous we all are that something
Which comes in both "virgin" and "extra virgin" are of equal worth.
As long as the flavor lingers on your tongue,
As if it were alive, it's good.

When I reached for the sauce pan,
In order to stir it's contents,
Forgetting it's handle had dawdled idle
Over a second, hotter burner,
It singed my skin.
The organic, protective insulation that
Covered the tips of my thumb and forefinger
Momentarily bellowed in pain,
As did I,
So instantaneous was the blistering.

Later, after the ice cubes had melted in my palm and
The cold water tap had been left to rest,
I inspected the rubbery remains of my appendage.
The fingerprint was so disfigured it
Wouldn't unlock my phone screen anymore.
How ironic that something so perfectly allegorical to myself and
So in keeping with my identity
Had poached that identity away from me.

Maybe when my fingerprint returns,
I'll text the girl I think about most these days.
My lover:
I cover her in kisses and sweet devotion,
Which she shrugs off her shoulders.
That makes her an atheist,
But it makes me an acolyte
And a fool.

Things You Can See More Clearly if You Don't Look Directly at Them

Every afternoon, 

I pull up to the red light by my house,

And if the light had sentience,
It would catch sight of me pause my podcast,
To hear the Stevie Ray Vaughan bleeding from his speakers,
And it would see me roll down my window,
To inhale his cigarette chem trails,
And it would see me muse to myself,

About how many queer women are dating
Men they want to be,

Or at least men whose lives they want access to:
The blessings by which we condemn ourselves.

Every morning, 

I pull my phone charger out of my phone, 

Like the pin of a grenade.

And as the morning slowly explodes into being,

I turn to her.

All she gives me is space - empty space on which to 

Propagate my own thoughts.

How strange and wonderful - to gift someone empty space.

As the primary subject of my poems,

She is fully aware that she is actually 

Just immortalizing herself,

With words of prosciutto and honey,

To exist in lines like:

"My baby smells like angel dust, I'll call that heaven scent".

Sound of a Tree in Love with her Log Cutter

I am a sick tree. My bark is painted in moss and furled swells of rigid tissue which have liberated themselves across the trunk of my body. I live next to healthy trees. They can control their swelling. They can grow oblivious to the insects and vines tugging at their roots. But this heartsickness touches so much of me. Everything between my canopy and the very last vertebra in my starchy, wooden spine.

If I wasn't dying slowly where I was planted, I could be buried in the hum of some faraway occupation. I could serve on a great ship or maybe submit to the curvature of a barrel, housing French Bourbon. But I wish she'd just fell me already. I wish she'd don her wooliest flannel shirt, smelling like she does, of sweet summer sweat and dark fruit. I want her to drive a wedge into my trunk and fell me where she wants me. But she doesn't offer me release when she comes.

It's been nine seasons and each one cut a thin, spindley ring into my trunk to mark the passing of slow, cold time. She climbs and climbs, swinging her own branchy legs - thick and consolidated, like my own - over my swells and burls. I feel so good with her arms around me. I feel warm to my innermost rings. Like after the first bloom. So good. So warm. I don't breathe. I'm a tree, without lungs or circulation or blood. Sap is a poor substitute for the kind of constitution swirling around inside her. But she breathes into me, struggling not to fall. Her breathing is so loud. Trees live in silence, you know. I've never experienced a pulse that demanded so firmly to be heard. Then she's gone, and I wanna fall. I want her to cut me into an unfeeling stump.

Felling is better than feeling and Fall is coming soon; I can taste it on the breeze like war.

One Last Moment on the Ground

The people who love me and the 

People who fuck me are never the same people,

But both leave me voicemails.

My voicemail is full. I keep it that way, like a motel - 

Indefinitely full of tenants incapable of moving on.

And I'm living a life full of teachers;

I'm grateful for the teachers.
Thank you for the teachers.

There are teachers in my brake pedals.

There are teachers in my mornings.

There are teachers in my freezer, and in my printer, and
In the hard days

Of no money and no justice.
There are teachers in my voicemail.

As winter ends,

And the days inch longer and longer,

Stretching slowly like a cat does after waking,

I go for runs along the river in my town.

Rounding the corner of the last fence post, 

I can see my porch light.

I sprint, combusting the last of my energy into one final kick.
The porch light is a teacher,
The cold air is a teacher,
The strain in my lungs is a teacher.

It feels like the last moment on the ground before your plane takes off.

Sometimes fight and flight are the same choice.

He Must Have Done Something

I want to write a poem about
The texts you send with the lights off.
I want to write a poem about
Keeping her close to my belly like
A pocket watch.
And watching her take big swings,
Asking me to cancel plans for her.
Snapping my fingers,
While she thinks of the name I can't grasp.
"John Steinbeck...?"

Yes,
That's the one.

Do you think John Steinbeck ever did
Something shameful?
D'you think he ever did
Something that felt yucky?
Something that resembled worms
When the memory slithered
Through his gut?
He must have done something.
Maybe a lie.
Or a low.

Yes,
That's the one.

Cortico Sport

Teeming with tunnel vision and little else,
The tot leaps off the slippery deck and
Flings herself into the depths below.
Five and a half feet of pool water is not terribly deep
But a toddler can drown in one, you know.

My mother moved with such swiftness
That any onlooker would have thought this
Was a coordinated succession.
First one
Then the other.

In fact it was born from a panic
So promordial it takes no input
From higher order cortical areas.

Just adrenaline and impulse.
It was a nudge from the brainstem
From my mother's brain's mother itself:
"Your child is in danger. Save your child."

The two plunged
One right after the other
And for the next nearly two decades
Neither would surface.
Not really.

The Covers

I'm in an Uber home,

Cruising into the sunrise.

I'm filled with something right now.
I don't know what it is but it sounds like Nora Jones.

In the bar... twelve hours ago.

The Cranberries we're playing.
But when we got in bed and she slid two fingers under my belt...

Others in my hair. The liquor made my lips numb but I can still feel...
It sounded more like Stairway to Heaven. Or Sonic Youth's Superstar.

Making tea in the kitchen at midnight
To Jack Johnson.
And then watching her splashing a shot of Jack Daniels into her elephant mug of black tea.
Sly smile through eyes that told me she wanted
To catch up to me.

Because she was still on Jack Johnson
And I felt more like Sex and Candy.

Now the driver's fingers brush over the volume dial;

Some 2009 karaoke number is flooding through the speakers.

I can't hear it.

The Chasm

I am not an announcement.

I am not one big achievement that carries me like a 

Wave to the next peak in my life.

I am a slow, mounting anthill 

Of tiny swells towards ideas about which nobody is more excited than me.

I'm not "down for whatever".

I am an edifice.

I come with multiple contingency plans.

There is nothing instant about my gratification,

And I've never taken a shower that wasn't hot as fuck,

And I feel as big as the ocean,

And as deep as a drum,

And as mammoth as a barrel full of wine.

You'd have me sleeping with one eye open 

But fuck that because I am a force,

And even when I am buried in the ground,

I will continue to form earthquakes until 

The house of your memory has fallen into the chasm of me.

Cricket

Lovesick again
Touch myself but with your hands
Moon rises higher
Attached to my heart with a rope
Like walking a dog
For ten hours straight

Cricket
It knows what I've been up to
Takes six eyes to catch it all
There's a lot you'll miss
With just your two

Didn't get high today
Makes the hours go by too fast
Everyone knows
That's no good when you're lovesick

Movies in Your Head

I still drive by some houses and struggle
Not to picture her curtains in the windows
And our babies at the breakfast table.

This house, however, is punctuated with a cop car,
Parked in the driveway like an exclamation mark.
Wait, I don't mean a police precinct squad vehicle.
I mean it looks like the type of muscled out,
Dark, tinted car that a cop drives off duty.
The one he takes home, fingers twitching for
An unreliably absent weapon.

When her fingers twitch, it's in her sleep,

The universe unexpectedly giving me space to owe it something later.

"Here," it coos, "Have her amber voice - sweet, and dark, and clear, like translucent maple syrup. Here, have her failures; even they are controlled demolitions. Here, have her keyboard clicks; they are bullets. Here, have her orgasms; they use the tongue muscle in its entirety. Here, have her words; they are spoken darts, sprung from a barrel at top speed."

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.