The Trappings of Family, or, "How Do I Get In Your Muthafuckin Heart?"

I've been going to the water, early, lately. To sit and stare and write and do.

I. (She)

I want your mouth on mine

Press your mouth into mine
Give me your legs I can't get enough of
your hands
and that part of your neck that runs from your ear to your shoulder

Let me fuck you

until you melt into me
a thousand times over
Tell me a part of what's upset you
each time you cum

Let me open you from behind

describe permanence and home
into your ear
watch your eyes close in surrender
and your mouth start to open in want



II. (She)

A list of what I have to get rid of and/or let go of:

The secret things you gave me that I have no business still having.
The plans that I had to go meet your mom's people.
The idea of meeting your dad and seeing who this man is who is in part responsible
for creating you.

III. (She)

It was your bone structure. Your hands. Your serious and concentrated look. It was how you would try and make it up to your cat when you would be frustrated about something, alone in your apartment, and hit the furniture and it would startle your cat. It was the little travel coffee mug thing you bought me. It was how you would need me to spray water on the windshield to clean the passenger side of it if you were in my car and there were smudges in your sightline. It was your filterlessness. It was safety. It was the pour over coffee thing you bought me. It was how you made coffee. It was the music that you listened to. It was your stark analytical mind. It was your laugh. It was your voice. It was the baseball bat that you gave me that I would later have to explain to a state patrol officer. It was your routine of taking baths. It was "Nobody Else But You". It was the fact that you were "that guy" - the one who smoked pot in a a non-smoking apartment building. It was Eleanor. It was how you would try and get me to watch a show I had no interest in 500 times (You read that the main character was taken off of the show after several people called him out for sexual harassment, right?  Yes. Including trans actresses). It was how you actually listened to R&B. It was everything in its place. It was your desire to travel. It was your eye for detail. It was your strength. It was the color of your eyes. It was your teeth. It was the retainer you wore at night. It was your socks that I appreciated. It was your sweatpants. It was your habits. It was your bones. It was me taking my camping trash with me every time I left your house. 

IV. (She)

Do you remember the day you were at my house and you accidentally knocked over a glass bottle of olive oil and it shattered?

We moved things around and cleaned it up as best we could, together.

Hands and knees and oil
trying to be careful
to get the chunks of glass.

We used towels but mostly this white and sparkled gift tissue that I pulled from the hallway closet. We used every rectangle of it until it was gone.
It was surprisingly absorbent.

I remember you remarking something about how you appreciated that I didn't get mad.

That if you would have done this in your mom's house, she would have yelled at you.

"Of course. It was a mistake," I said.

I turned around
and put the glass we had collected
into a paper bag.

I thought about what you said.

I couldn't imagine someone yelling at you for a mistake.
Especially not one that could have hurt you.



I understand this interaction in a different way, now.

Your reaction to mistakes and its history.

I understand it as lineage.

It doesn't have to be but

Here I am:

by myself and

with nothing left

to use

to absorb the mess.
 


k.
(title: Second title is from Rihanna's Love On the Brain)
(image: Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932), Souvenir, 31/64, 1995. Oil on canvas, 21 x 21 cm. This work is number 31 of 64 unique parts from the painting CR 84, which was cut into individual canvases by the artist. Via thunderstruck9 tumblr)