I’d say it left, but it never came to leave, it never heaved
itself to the rent by the hour hollow of a would be rendezvous gone awry with a
series of increasingly intentionally missed connections and a succession of
sighs shifting through the seasons from ones of genuine grief to absolute
relief. It staggers belief if you’re asking, which you wouldn’t, because you
didn’t, because you never will now and though I try to keep my internal voice
still, stern, I can’t help but to yearn, not for what was there, because that’s
been laid far too bare today, but for I thought was there, someone to care for
and someone who cared, something soft on the rim of romance, something rare and seemingly reachable,
instead of this ravaging rawness that caresses me claws to flesh tip to nail
bed stained red, red as the cherry in this flat highball waiting to be pissed
up the wall, my drunken aim angled for what I thought was the back of the bowl, but was the
face of the stall.
It should’ve been you, it could’ve been you, I knew things
got in the way, but to realise there was nothing to get in the way of, why keep
the façade? Was it so hard to be honest? Was it so hard to face me, instead of
leaving me to stare into the the ticking of a clock through the bottom of a
drained double, a simple clock with a dirty face and three slow hands that triple
despite the doubles downgrading to singles as the tab towers around me,
standing, stood up, being picked up by a bouncer who could trounce me but doesn’t
out of pity.
I was never pitiful, so I thought, though I guess the look
courts me tonight in your place, because it was your place, regardless of what
you say. Good or bad. It was supposed to be your place today.
But enough of that. I’m a bride to be, and I’ve got a priest
to see, and a mother to make happy, so I’ll free myself of this note, never to
be quoted, only to be floated through the federal system, stamp-less, classless,
limp with liquor drying crusted in circular formations never to leave the county let alone the nation. I’m drunk, and it is dreary, and the
year is nearly over.
We shared our times, toeing our wavering way down a neon
Skid Row that was worlds away from Seattle, seeing due to doubles the street in
doubles as a stage, and making a show of it all for no one to know about. Bodies
in alleys, fingers taking turns, my prints upon you, and yours inside mine, the
first to ever mine me there, that way, of your gender, of our species, to make
me ever want to say the words I never knew when to say. You showed me something I never knew
I could feel, and gradually you left it, not over night, but over drifting
decades, an open heart hardening into a haggard hole, open arms never closing
around you, but staying open, degrading into a widening wound that this letter has
bloomed from. This letter to you, this letter to no one, this letter to the
lover long gone. It was a phase for you, that’s all you ever had to say, it was
your phase, so why phase me with it? Why appraise me the way you did, your warm
fingers in every pleasurable place, bringing a wet refuge from the drought I never
knew needed addressing before you started undressing me?
I’m a bride to be, and though I will soon be free of this
note, you won’t free me. It doesn’t matter how many maxi pads pass without
event, because your fingerprints are still in there, and this love which I wish
were hate, feels like a cervix tear. You were in lust, so why’d you suggest
love? Why’d you stay, why’d you call? Why did you let me sit down for the one night
stand, and let me take your hand, and smile when I said join me? Why’d you join
me all those years, over all those beers, in all those queer clubs, those clam
baked bars, those dyke dives, and act like I
brought you there. Like you never
tasted me, like I never did the same, over the years your perceived tolerance building
to a tight lipped shame. And then you
stopped meeting, and left me standing in a frame too big for just me, and you
left it all to be, burying me behind a bevy of rain checks and a broken levee
of pleasantries.
You know I called you today, to see if you’d really settle
for seeing me settle, not with a man, because it wasn’t a gender dilemma. It was
you: an abstract alley rut that repeated herself throughout the wealth of our
dorms amid the norms of our set. I can’t lay a hand on stocking tops today,
because of what I wore when we used to play. It’s hurts too much, just the touch.
I’m a bride to be, and the only place I have left to hide
now is behind my veil, soon to be unwrapped, found and revealed in front of a man
who fell in love with what something is, and not a someone who made them feel. Real
seems so relative, so repugnant, not meant for my today. I would give it all away just to feel your contemptible
concept of a harmless phase haze me again. I would give it all, but what is
there to give, and who is there to give it to, if not you?
I’m a bride to be, and even after today I’ll be there
waiting for you to set me free, not from a place of weakness, but from a place
of will, because only a profound strength could instil me with the ability
to call you again, and set a date in the calendar for you to cancel on, only to
set another, and pretend I’m not pretending that you’re not already gone.