A self portrait in grays

A lists of my texts to you between three and four in the morning:
hey

u still up

probably not lol

i was just thinking
what was that movie we went to see in November?

u remember, it had that little boy who runs away with his grandad
or is it his uncle
the movie is filmed in New Zealand, i think
sometimes i want to run away to new Zealand

jk

but, like, i was also thinking about after the movie

u never said sorry

everyone in the theatre was looking at us
and then after u left they were all looking at me
crying

did i ever tell you that?
i did. i cried after u left.

for like a whole month, actually
but i don't think u knew
u never bothered to ask
u actually haven't talked to me since the movie

and, like i know it wasn't working for u
i keep going over in my head how i could've fixed it
maybe if i spent more time listening and less time talking
maybe if i spent less time with Justin and Dan
maybe if i had gone down in on u more
maybe if i had asked u to go down on me less

but u haven't even texted me ONCE since then

i don't know if i could have fixed it
i don't know if i would want to take u back
i dont know if i could say no if u asked for me back

do u want me back?

Things I sometimes stop myself from saying

If the door says pull,
Pushing is a silly thing to do

I don't owe you my time. Ever.

One on one conversations are a good way to affect personal change.

Telling people they're wrong only makes them think they're mire correct.

There's no such thing as reverse racism.

There's no such thing as reverse sexism.

All oak trees grow from a single acorn.

This too shall pass.

Being able to take a third party stance is a form of privilage.

Telling someone to calm down is a form of emotion policing.

You never know what someone's been through.

You don't owe anyone else your time or emotional energy.

Emotional work is still work and framing it as positive traits all women possess is a form of oppression.

Without explicit consent it's rape.

Benevolent sexism is still oppressive.

I'm not upset.

You're the defensive one.

Your masculinity is so fragile it might shatter if I breathed on it wrong.

FUCK YOU
I DON'T OWE YOU
ANYTHING

Missed connections

You were the cat curled in a geometric circle on the carpet next to still glowing of the woodstove.
I was the dog barking and straining her leash from the street outside.

You were that newspaper article on the table at my dentist's office with the dancing girls on the picture.
I was the goldfish trapped in the tank with my mouth hanging open.

You were the sweet and sticky smell of pine needles in the Adirondack summer.
I was the sun, stretching my rays towards you, slowing my path through the sky to spend just a few more minutes with you.

You were a single sparking grain of sand in the Sahara.
I was an innocent breeze turned hurricane, destroying villiages to find you.

Seasonal Depression

The sky gets dark at four and then night lingers on until seven
His greedy fingers grabbing at morning like the sunrise has promised him something.
The sun does not fight back.
Instead, the sun slinks across the sky,
Afraid of any unwanted attention
Hoping to go about her business unnoticed and make it home before dark.

The sun is distant, these days, and cold
She is afraid any heat, any semblance of warmth, might give the night the wrong idea.
The sun does not want anyone to think she was asking for it.
The sun is careful not to take up too much space in the winter time.

The night sprawls himself ever longer,
Reaching for space that never belonged to him.
Space that he assumes is his birthright
Because no one has ever told him it's not.
Because, hey, if it's not his, why does the sun give it up so easily?

The sun gives the night her space quietly,
Without a fight.
Wishing for spring.

Body series 7

Healing is watching water evaporate from a ten gallon bucket
Healing is twelve hours on the couch with an icepack on my knee
Healing is nails on a chalkboard
Healing is trying to piece together a broken ceramic vase. Spending hour after hour bent over a work bench until your fingers burn and your eyes ache.
Healing is waking up the next morning to find the vase shattered to pieces again.

Body(s) series 8

It's strange that we two dancers much sit together in stillness.
I want nothing more than to sway with you, eyes on your eyes.
I want to own the dance floor with you.
Or the starbucks, or keryoke lounge, or any ground we stand on.
For me, for us, dancing is liberation.
But now we sit in stillness.

Assorted

One half of a famous pair of lovers:

I never asked you to poison yourself
In my toumb. And yet here we are.  And your
Dagger with no place to rest. How tragic.


I live in a world where love means nothing
It's trivial to have nothing to lose.
All words are made up of such stuff of dreams.
So there's not much point in preserving the
Fiction of reality. This is not love.