this day and all others i am
all rage against passivity,
all hatred for inactivity.
tonight and every other dragged-through day,
choked up with chalkboard dust and grime,
is an exercise in futility but i
maintain my hyperemotionality with faith
in the known, in the believed, in the living.

i am a footprint, a slow heavy
imprint in the sand,
an even marker of progress and weight.

you are an ocean tide,
a ruthless beautiful swelling up of water
and salt and sunshine and motion.

truthfully we are neither of these things,
merely human beings working to become
part of each other's narrations.

i am a footprint in the sand,
you are a seaside tide.

and we are much more complicated creatures than that.

i do not feel emasculated when you offer to buy me things.
i do not feel defeminized when you make me do the hard work.
i do not feel asexualized when you call me friend, not lover.

the lines of gender are too blurred to feel anything
about the daily interactions that make our love strong.

i cannot commit
words to page
any longer
without admitting
that words are
an escape from
a body that
no longer
suffices, no
further can
be pushed.
i have lost
much more than
i can say:
a body that
ran on love,
not caffeine,
that tripped up
stairs lightly,
instead of
tripping up them
clumsy and slow.
i have lost,
i am losing,
i miss my feet.