One-sided Conversations

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You gave me Ani Defranco's Lifeboat and this is what I did with it

Transcript:

On lifeboats and imagined futures

Or: And for a moment, everything is ok again.

(September)

Drunkenly haunting my own streets

Uneven pavement under well-worn boots

The old red ache in my feet

Dulls the pain of

Being exposed

I'm out to sea in the moonlight

A cacophony of emotions

Politely waiting to drown me

Curled safe in the eye of the storm, now briefly

And I'm thinking of you

And what's still out there waiting for me

And how I’ve learned to be alone

I'm 35 and still smiling

My way out of every jam

Glitter in my crow’s feet, lately

And a purple scabby heart

Pressed against the cage of my ribs

Beating it's sweet outrage

‘You taught me the way of our world’ it cries.

Unmoored from the ways of man

No more wishing on passing cars

City lights floating in the big dark sea

For the first time,

The shore seems drenched in jasmine

And something else could be out there for me

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Transcript:

Love me quietly.

Leave a light on when you go to bed.

I'll be in - in a minute

I need another Last Smoke.

Maybe tonight

we'll cross over, before you wake with daylight

I'll ease into bed beside you.

Breathing in-time

And you won't remember reaching for me

Warm and soft with sleep

My tear-streaked cheeks dry by morning

But here, in the dark,

It’s all I can bare.

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Transcript:

Just Lonely, I Guess

Or: Shut up! It's Dog Time -

(April or June? Who knows)

I know I promised I wouldn't

But

I'd let a dog sleep in the bed

For you

Even while you're away

We'd have a begrudging understanding

That dog and I,

Our backs barely touching

Curled around a space just for you

I'd manage the shared calendar

And you'd rearrange the furniture

A lamp in every room!

Summer tomatoes by the back step

Hers & Hers sensible boots in a haphazard row

A fridge full of beer that I won't drink

Sweet gherkins traded for dill pickles forever

Friends over on Sunday afternoon

My half-mended sweater next to your paints

Still set by the window in a slice of sun

And I'd do my best to find

Something to enjoy about Nick Cave

I'd try to hold the ground steady under our feet

With all my fragile might

And you'd take me out of myself

When the world won't fit in my faltering fingers

I'd account for your freeze

in all my panicked harebrained schemes

And your itchy feet would upend

my terrified complacency

And I'd go to therapy

But I'll still ache with nameless need so tightly that I can't breathe, sometimes

It's a part of me so old that

I don't know who I am without it, after all

Still instinctively swallow unexamined desire like hot coals before I even register the burn

But maybe I wouldn't stifle my sobs to avoid waking you, sometimes

I think I could start there

And I can't fix what he broke in you

Or offer you the family you wish you'd had

Or stop folks from defining you as part of me

And for both our sakes

You’ll need to walk your own path awhile, sometimes

We need our various constellations of beloveds

To warm the sorrow from our entangled bones, after all

Or I do, anyway.

I wish I could offer you my best on a platter

But I’d settle for building you

something to come home to

Our friends and the damn dog and

lazy afternoons cluttered with sunshine

Then i’d pray it was enough

To line the path away from me with roses

So we’d both know

You're exactly where you choose to be

Each and every time

you come home to me

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Transcript:

Full of Something, Anyway

(March)

I want to be so full of love that it leaks out of me

I want to be so full of love that just being near me

Feels like mid-afternoon coffees in my overgrown yard with sunshine kissing our hangovers

Feels like more friends than chairs in our cobbled-together-homes with our housemates-come-families

Feels like cooking your own eggs after too many weeks away

I want to be so full of love that I earn reciprocity

You said you loved how I made you feel -

Which is almost the same thing

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Transcript:

The thing about Sapphics and Cannibalism

(February)

Crosslegged on the bare cement

We eat purloined dip and piss the night away

Hushed giggles and scavenged beers

Try not to wake the housemates! -

The end of a another sweaty summer festival night

Robin said there’s flood warning for the storm brewing

(And not to eat the dip)

The storm will break, later, as we're walking home

Past the traffic lights, where we first dared to imagine unorthodox futures wrapped around each other

I'll cover you in beer scented sour cream kisses

Exhilarated and soaked to the skin

While the gutters overflow into the empty street in the grey morning air

(Sorry about the dip, Robin)

But now in the suffocating heat,

sweat caught in the fine golden peach fuzz on your cheek

glittering by the witching moon

The conversation shifts

We slap mosquitos from our ankles

And you're telling us about the masks you wear

The things you edit

To earn the respect you're owed

I can almost see the kid inside you

Dressed in opshop corduroy

Beetle black carapaces crushed between your teeth

Antennae twitching to a chorus of boys

Shrieking on the playground

On another night in the same place with the same friends

You had asked me

What's the thing about sapphics & cannibalism?

And I, ever the academic, spun together some plausible five dollar words:

“Subvert” “Heteronormative” “Juxtaposition”

History and culture;

A precocious child dutifully reciting other women's fantasies

Feral passion sterilized,

its dissected entrails pinned open

Bloodless in the name of understanding

In the heavy humid air,

A confused insect crashlands into sticky doom

You chase it with a shard of corn chip

As it writhes deeper into its creamy tomb

You issue a warning to the hapless creature

Impertinent, it continues to evade your efforts to scoop it over the side of the cheap plastic tub to (goopy, garlicky) freedom

You dig your chip deep under the flailing insect and bring it to your mouth

I watch the curve of your lips, purple in the moonlight, as they close around the still wriggling body

Suddenly alone together in the breathless dark,

Silent laughter erupting from deep within my hot, wet guts; I know

the thing about sapphics & cannibalism

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Transcript:

Author's note/blatant Anxiety Spiral

(October)

So.. I don't know if I'm actually going to give you this. It feels wrong to write to you and keep it from you but I am recalcitrant to share at the best of times.

There's some stuff in here (obviously) and I don't want you to hear an ask that I'm not making. I need you to know that I heard you when you told me what you want for your future ... and I will be delighted for you when you find it. I just needed to write through whatever this is so I could be happy for you. so I will be happy for you. so I am happy for you.

I wouldn't have dreamed of sharing any of this without finding that patch of jasmine and feeling it breathe new possibilities on my skin. While I returned to all of these a bunch of times, they're loosely dated. In spirit if not in actuality. Pick and choose at your leisure or not at all. It feels wrong to write to you and keep it from you but that doesn't demand you listen... I'm not entirely sure I want you to but I'll settle for sending this to you when I know you won't be looking at me.

Ok, I guess I'm ready when you are

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For Tia

Happy birthday

I love you