The piece of you stuck in me

On nights like this I think of him

By nights like this, I mean every other night

And by think of him I mean lament

I mean mourn

I mean smile while I’m doing something else

Smile to myself while I’m showering

and drinking chamomile tea

and playing Animal Crossing

and blinking slowly and cleaning my room

His name is a hum

It’s a song I can’t get out of my head

The rhythm thrums against my brain, tapping on every nerve at all times

I am the pollen of the echinacea

and he is the wind or the bumblebee or the rain or whatever other handsome and lovely thing that shakes me from my core.

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Before there was Love there was…

I don’t remember who I was before I fell in love with a man. 

That isn’t to say that there had never been a me who hadn’t loved a man, because surely I had felt things towards men that I simply confused for love. And I was certainly a 3 year old and a 4 year old and a 5 year old who cared more about ice cream sandwiches and watching figure skating than anything else in the world, but that is to say that I don’t remember those moments fully.

When I look back at my younger self in elementary school, the one who wore braids and barrettes and pink layered skorts with Skechers, I remember the first boy that I was in love with. We’ll call him B. I had a crush on B from the moment I first saw him at recess in 2007 and I loved him until the fall of 2012.

In 2012 I fell in love with V. He changed my life. He showed me what it meant to love someone with my entire underdeveloped soul. He was my first true love and heartbreak. And he was a complete bag of garbage. This time of my life was when I learned the word “unrequited”. It’s when I first realized that men could want your body, your company, and even the words straight from your throat but never actually want you. I stopped loving him in 2018.

And in 2018 there was J. And nothing has been the same since.

Here we ignore all the little men, the ones who I only half loved in between phases of my life. All this love, each one more beautiful and glamorous than the next, it takes its toll. Maybe you would think that after loving so hard once, you love a little easier the next time. But that’s not true. It’s like your heart takes the first beating and it only gets stronger after that.

I used to think the problem was falling in love in the first place. But it was never the falling. It was always the losing. Losing parts of myself within someone else. Losing in love. Trusting strangers to carry the heavy parts of me that even I found too weighty to lift most days. 

I’m hoping to find those pieces of myself again and put them back. I want to feel all of that love in my soul again. Every stomach swoop and stolen glance and nail biting, cheek numbing smile on my face, it was an expression of my joy. This time I want to feel that for myself.

Dairy Allergy

His name was Jack Johnson and he was a summer shade.

Well,

More like a summer breeze,

Really,

Cool like that.

He was a nice cool down in the summer

But not necessarily a nice guy.

Not a nice guy at all. I mean,

He wasn’t mean or angry or would punch you for looking at him twice

Or nothing like that but he might just

Tell you to stop laughing so loud

Or ask why you dress the way you do.

And I was in love with him, of course

Because I always fall in love with shadow men

Who keep parts of themselves hidden from me until the sun

Hits them just right

Because I’m really

Dumb

Like that. And he, Jack Johnson, was perfect for me.

He held my hand, not because he wanted to,

But because I wanted to

And he bought me dessert at American restaurants and

Always let me have the last bite.

And when we cuddled, his body curved around mine like a question mark

Though I was certainly no answer.

Jack Johnson had a mustache and a beard and legs like 

Redwoods and eyes like lychee.

Clouded and bright and wet.

“If you were a food you’d be some fancy French dessert that I couldn’t pronounce”

He told me once.

And you’d be milk, I thought.

And how I love cream.

When we spoke on the phone he sighed a lot.

Breathing out everything he couldn’t say and inhaling everything I could.

I confided in Jack Johnson

And drank him up in any form that I could consume.

When the barista asked for his name he’d say

“Jake, Jack, Joe, whatever’s easiest for you to write.”

How strange.

I like to think it was his way of saying he was barely a man at all.

Only half man

And half the dark side of a concrete building.

When we were close,

Really close,

He could only ever look into my eyes.

The warmth between our bodies wasn’t a fire, it was a gas oven

Left on long after we’d left the house.

“Say my name,” he’d whisper.

Tell it to me, I’d think.

He slept without blankets, he hated movies, and he took prescription drugs.

Jack Johnson made fun of me when I bought knick knacks.

He would always ask me what I

Would do with them.

He didn’t get the point of things that weren’t useful.

I joked that I wished he loved cute little things the way that I do and he responded

“Well I love you.”

And I smiled and cried

And sipped on his half truth like hot tea with extra cream.

My Favorite Thing I’ve Ever Done

I met you when I was just learning how to breathe again and then you took that breath into your palms, shoved it in your pocket, and waited for the perfect moment to give it back to me. I have never been a big fan of breathing on my own. I felt lucky that you’d found so much value in my breath that you’d take it like you did. Like a gentle thief. A gracious burglar. You didn’t steal it and leave me gasping, you offered me your exhale instead and I seized it. And those moments when your breath couldn’t come fast enough, when I needed an inhale and you were nowhere to be found, when you were busy breathing life into other things, I scratched at my throat and made a makeshift hole. What’s it like to feel like the sun? What’s it like to feel untouchable? What’s it like to feel brave at last? It’s like feeling superior. You made me feel superior and without air. And I’m telling you that those breathless moments, those painful aches, those times that seeing you made my stomach hop into my throat were all worth it. And loving you is my favorite thing I’ve ever done

Green

A single cherry tree

A hummingbird colored chartreuse and gold

Flying so close to my head I think it will land on me

Bare feet

Bright green beneath me sprouting between my toes

The hem of my dress swinging around my knees

Grass stains covering the silk fabric

I know they’ll never come out.

Remnants of

Honey lemon iced tea made by

My boyfriend coat the back of my throat

The smell of his old cologne sticking to me in places

I cannot reach with my eyes and the ghost of his touch is present.

I smile.

French Baguette Waltz on 2

There’s no feeling like you et me

Perhaps la douceur of me in your paume

Twirling like a dancer, free

A piece of your music box charm

You spread me on your french baguette

I’m melted and sweet and predictable

I make you taste better; ma saveur est prête

Together, nous sommes formidable

Loneliness is very sour

You and I have known it well

Why don’t we, at the top of this hour

Drink all our shoelaces and eggshells?

I would like to know your soul

Je n’aimerais pas être seul.